Personal workspace assembly
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing workspace arrangements for traveling employees in open facilities lack visibility, privacy, and optimal ergonomic design, often leading to reduced usage due to unclear availability, claustrophobic feelings, and damage from movable components.
Innovation Solution
A modular personal workspace arrangement featuring a lounge chair surrounded by a partial wall structure with transparent upper sections, providing privacy and visibility while minimizing damage through stationary components and integrated support for work surfaces and devices.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a closed door office is used for hotelling, then privacy is improved, but visibility of availability and clarity of use status deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies color-coded signage (e.g., green for available, red for occupied) on or near the workspace to communicate availability status visually. This allows the workspace to maintain a closed door for privacy while using external visual indicators to convey information about its current state, resolving the contradiction between privacy and visibility of availability.
2Reliability
If a closed door office is used for hotelling, then privacy is improved, but clarity of current use status deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements feedback mechanisms such as signage or indicators that automatically or manually update to reflect the current use status of the workspace. This feedback system provides real-time information about whether the space is available, occupied, or scheduled, allowing the closed door to maintain privacy while the external indicators provide clear status information.
3Adaptability or versatility
If movable components are used in workspace arrangements, then adaptability is improved, but damage from collision increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent inverts the traditional approach by making the workspace structure stationary and fixed, rather than movable. The lounge chair and partial wall structure are positioned in fixed locations, eliminating collision damage risks while maintaining adaptability through the selection and arrangement of different stationary components to suit various work needs.
4Reliability
If opaque wall structures are used, then privacy is improved, but sense of openness and visibility deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by using transparent or translucent materials for the partial wall structure instead of completely opaque materials. This allows the wall to provide localized privacy for the workspace while simultaneously maintaining visual connection to the surrounding environment, creating a sense of openness. The transparency is applied specifically to the wall portions that would otherwise block visibility.
Data Source
AI summary
A lounge assembly comprising a lower wall structure including at least first and second spaced apart side walls and a rear wall that together form an assembly space, each of the side walls and rear wall including an internal surface, a seat assembly supported between the first and second side walls, a first coupler mounted to the internal surface of the first side wall, a support arm having an arm length dimension between proximal and distal ends, the proximal end mounted to the first coupler adjacent the internal surface of the first side wall for rotation about a first vertical axis and a tablet member supported at the distal end of the support arm for rotation about a second vertical axis through a second range of motion with respect to the support arm.