HOME OFFICE : The Only Walls Are in the Mind

Early predictions were that working at home would give people more scope to be themselves. To a degree, that’s true. But more than that, one magazine editor says, the attending technology has created a new worker category: one who works any time, any place the mood strikes.

In the October issue of Metropolis magazine in New York, two dozen leaders in business and the arts were asked where they do their best thinking.

“They are apt to take a laptop computer to the kitchen or out on the patio and to make their phone calls from the car,� says Susan Szenasy, editor in chief. “Portable phones and laptop computers allow people to work anywhere. You can get an idea in the middle of the night and enter it in your power book.�

Just how much freedom one can have while working at home depends a great deal on the task.

“You can read at the beach,� Paul Cornell says. “But if you are doing computer work, you need a work surface.�

As manager of behavior and environmental research for Steelcase Inc. in Grand Rapids, Mich., Cornell studies what makes for an optimum work environment. He says there’s something to be said for work space to call your own at home.

“It can be made off-limits to the kids, it puts you in the mood to work, it separates work space from family space, and you gain some privacy,� he says. “A common theme is ‘leave me alone.’ �

Beyond privacy, desirable features in a home office are adequate lighting and ventilation and correct height for the work surface and chair. When using the keyboard, for example, your forearms should be roughly parallel to the floor. A chair that tilts and supports the lower back also is a plus, but the executive desk is a dinosaur.

“People tend to like wraparound desks, such as a U-shape, an L-shape or a shallow C,� Cornell says. “They offer greater surface for the items you need . . . although there is no hard evidence that they improve work performance.�

Nor, for that matter, will a separate room or a lock on the door.

“Once you decide to work at home,� says Constantin Boym, a conceptual artist and architect in New York, “all the functions get mixed up--child care and cooking as well as the conventional tasks of office work.�

Boym and Laurene Leon make that point with a desk on display at the Cooper-Hewitt National Museum of Design in New York. Their tongue-in-cheek piece combines a desktop, a playpen, a cooktop, a tiny refrigerator and a file cabinet. A lazy Susan in a round file cabinet allows the worker to go from filing to cooking with a flick of the wrist.

Boym and Leon exaggerated, of course, but there are those who believe in the market for functional furniture for the home office.

The International Design Center in New York, for example, staged “Integrated Officing ‘93,� dedicated to the fact that home, office and family are beginning to blend.

The Knoll Group recently introduced a wrist rest, mouse pad and a foot rest for home computer stations. They are sold through the Museum of Modern Art mail-order catalogue. A small portable cabinet for laptop computers and adjustable tables for computer equipment also are part of its product line.

What’s next?

“The future will be pluralistic,� Cornell says. “We focused on getting that work surface just right, and now quite a number of people are only in an office 50% of the time.�