Product Focus: LEAN by Tom Degres, Quinze & Milan x Maine

“It’s called LEAN which is a pretty easy, straightforward name”

During Clerkenwell Design Week we caught up with Tom Degres of Quinze & Milan who collaborated with Maine Storage and Filing to create a brand new innovative product that could really change the landscape of the office. the product takes a already existing necessity in any office, storage cabinets…

Can you tell us about Quinze & Milan?

We are specialists in solution providers for let’s say temporary seating environment, offices, hospitals, schools, libraries, museums. Part of a project where we were involved in, think tank for Microsoft, was trying to define the trends in office space and how people would work. One of the conclusions out of that was that sedentary working is part of the past and people will go more for
if you want a vertical position in working, agile work and mobile working if you want to call it.

What was the concept behind LEAN?

One of our partners, part of that think tank, came up with the idea of using, re-inventing the storage units that are still left in every office. Although storage is reducing there will always be
a need for a personal storage of some kind of archive. If you look at the footprint a standard office with storage units, it’s quite a lot of surface you utilise. So, we came up with a system that basically adds function to the storage unit, and we have done this by providing different shapes which have an ergonomically function allowing people to lean on and at the same time work.

What difference will LEAN make to an office?

I think the benefit of this is that you turn limited space in any office into something that is useful because storage you can’t do without but in a lot of cases it’s not used more than just to store. This way you make it into an interactive space. You give people an opportunity to work standing up but also temporary situation where people can just move around, interact in a breakout session or just use it for the morning to do their emails.

 

For more info about Quinze & Milan check out their website