The latest trends are becoming increasingly popular within the field of international design, office interior design and commercial architecture. In order to reflect these developments, Ofitec’08, the International Trade Exhibition of Office and Contract Furniture and Equipment, will present an exhibition that analyses these trends one by one. This exhibition will bring together an extensive selection of offices, including the most cutting-edge designs, such as the Mother Agency in London, designed by Clive Wilkinson, where the employees not only share a single table but also change position every three weeks in order to promote the "cross-fertilisation" of ideas. We will also come across offices that reveal a strong awareness of environmental issues, such as the office belonging to the Dutch agency, Ro+Ad, which is entirely made of cardboard and is located in Amsterdam. The offices of the company, Ofita, designed by King Miranda Design and located in Madrid, constitute another example that will be presented at the exhibition. The shift from traditional office formats to a series of more open and diaphanous spaces is another of the trends that this exhibition will faithfully reflect.

 

As explained by the curator of the exhibition, the architect Pedro Feduchi, "the purpose of the exhibition is to show the office of the future. The most valuable asset owned by companies today consists of the talent of their employees; organisations are spending increasing amounts in a bid to hold on to this talent. How are they doing this? They do it by transforming the office into an attractive and comfortable environment, one that promotes the exchange of ideas and facilitates the employees' sense of identification with the company. The configuration of an office can change the level of morale among employees. In this respect, layout is an essential and primordial factor".

 

This grand exhibition will consist of one hundred pictures of recently-built offices. Each of these photographs provides a clear example of working environments today, which must fulfil a number of different requirements: an ability to cater for purely functional needs, the capacity to adequately convey the values of the organisation and the ability to support the company's corporate strategy.

 

The offices exhibited in this selection have been developed by 30 prestigious creators, including the most highly-renowned architects, interior designers and product designers throughout the world.

 

The exhibition will encompass a versatile range of office formats in different countries, based on different cultures. Thus, visitors will be able to admire offices ranging from the most groundbreaking designs of Wilkinson (The United States) and Pottgiesser (France) to the optimised solutions of DEGW (UK and Spain) and Foster & Partners (UK). They will also be able to view the objects produced by Häberli (Switzerland) and Bouroullec (France), which make life in the office easier, not to mention small office environments such as those of Dsquadra (Spain) and Ro+Ad (The Netherlands) and enormous futuristic working environments such as those of NMDA (The United States), together with relevant Spanish names such as Sapey, King+Miranda, de la Hoz, Tabuenca Saralegui, Solid, MoMo, Francesc Rifé, Abaton Landaluce, or César Ruiz Larrea, Dutch names such as Koen Van Velsen or Merkx and Girod, German names such as Sauerbruch and Hutton, Danish names such as Louise Campbell, or Italian names such as Francesco Gatti in China.

 

Feria de Madrid – Halls 1, 3, 5 and 7 - will host between 26th and 29th February 2008, the ninth edition of Ofitec 08, the International Trade Exhibition of Office and Contract Furniture and Equipment, considered as the second most important event within its sector Europe. Throughout its four-day duration, a total of 190 national and international exhibitors will present the latest ideas in furniture and equipment for offices and working environments, adapted to different business management models, as well as the most innovative trends and applications in the ever-changing office environment.