Tag Archives: Working From Home

These 3D printed modular offices are built from recycled PET plastic for a sustainable workspace solution!

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Inspired by the prefabricated cabins and work-from-home solutions coming out of the pandemic, designers across the globe are coming up with their own answers to local office problems. In Rotterdam, Europe’s largest seaport, warehouses often lack demarcated and comfortable offices for their workers, pushing ArchiTech Company to collaborate with Royal 3D and the Port of Rotterdam Authority and come up with a solution. Finding one in R-IGLO, the new office zones resemble the shape of igloos and are 3D-printed using the waste that comes from Rotterdam’s local ports.

In making R-IGLO, ArchiTech Company joined arms with Royal 3D to create igloo-like workspaces that are made from recycled PET plastic, a material that can be reused plenty of times over. Currently undergoing redevelopment, an important harbor in Rotterdam called M4H is where the team behind R-IGLO sources all the material used during the 3D printing process. Once the materials needed for printing are acquired, the construction of each R-IGLO workspace takes place in M4H as well. The R-IGLO units are built by linking together 3D-printed panels that can later be disassembled, stored, and transported just as easily as they were put together. Since each R-IGLO structure comprises several modules, owners can decrease or increase the size of their R-IGLO by swapping out different sized modules.

R-IGLO was conceived in order to solve the lack of working spaces in Rotterdam’s M4H district, where many of the warehouses require more working zones. Reinforcing the PET plastics with short glass fibers during the 3D printing process, each igloo-like workspace is durable and rigid on the outside and creates soft acoustics on the inside. Better yet, each R-IGLO is printed from a CFAM machine, one of the world’s largest printers, printing the entire igloo-like structure in a mere ten days.

Designer: ArchiTech Company, Royal 3D, Port of Rotterdam Authority

Locally sourced and built inside the warehouses of MFH’s port, R-IGLO is a large-scale 3D printed solution for workspaces.

With a rigid, solid exterior, R-IGLO keeps noise out while the interior provides some soft acoustics.

Each R-IGLO comes in modules so the overall size can be enlargened or reduced according to the worker’s needs.

Printed off CFAM printers, R-IGLO structures can be built in a short matter of ten days.

Coming included with light sockets and interior heating, each R-IGLO represents what the designers call, “a modular turn-key solution.”

This wall-mounted desk holds a terrarium to improve your mental health while working from home

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Even before stay-at-home orders were put in place, my green thumb was itching, but living in a small apartment doesn’t seem to get me close enough to scratch it. So I buy flower bouquets and ivy house plants to get a little taste of what it might feel like to have a garden. There’s no denying that my plants give me a sense of calm when I work next to them. With the double whammy of the quarantine forcing us to work from home, along with the onslaught of snow with winter, some calm is much needed for all of us. Mental health is known to improve when a little bit of nature is brought indoors, which represents a core logic of biophilic design. Showcasing his own biophilic design, Jake Round recently debuted visuals for Terrarium Desk, a wall-mounted desktop that integrates a removable plant terrarium, providing a mental respite for those of us in need.

While Terrarium Desk was initially designed in order to help mitigate the mental stressors that come along with both the colder seasons and working from home in the year 2020, the desk’s compact nature might also feel inviting for city-dwellers. In other words, my wall of dried flowers might be moving out sooner than expected. Round’s design is wall-mountable and incorporates plenty of storage space for clutter that would otherwise claim space on our desktops – laptops, tablets, magazines, books, the works. At the desk’s focal point, Round placed his glass terrarium, which includes a warm light for cozy night viewings or brighter workspaces during the day. While the light can be dimmed, the terrarium itself is always in sight, whether the desk is opened or closed.

When closed, the desk’s minimal front face hinges at and displays the plant life inside the terrarium. When opened, the desk’s terrarium promotes your focus by stimulating brain function and emitting oxygen as well as positive carbons. What’s to gain from caring for houseplants might appear as just a list of temporary relievers, but they each hold their own weight. While the list of mental health benefits is short and more attainable when put to practice, the peace that comes with it could stay awhile.

Designer: Jake Round

Slack’s latest changes couldn’t come at a better time

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Slack was already a big part of modern work life for many people, but as more companies turn to remote work, it is becoming even more essential. Even if you were using Slack to chat with coworkers in an office before, conducting all of your conversat...

YD Talks – How to stay productive while working or studying from home

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Believe it or not, I have a decent amount of experience in this field. Ever since I began working full time at YD, I’ve done it from all parts of the world… but 99% of the time, I’ve done it from my home.

Working from home is boring, un-productive, and is filled with distractions. I won’t lie. Being alone at home every day can sometimes affect your mood, and that tends to undermine one’s productivity. You’re less likely to report to work exactly on time, and under the lack of supervision, chances are you’ll have Netflix or YouTube open in a browser window right beside your work. To be honest, remote work isn’t for everyone, and just like it takes time to get into the rhythm of a new job, it takes time to adjust to the new experience of working from home. The good news is that this shift, for the most part, isn’t permanent. It’s a phase that’ll soon pass, and recognizing that really helps you work/study better.

This Is Covidiculous

Given the threat posed by COVID-19, a majority of companies and schools around the world are shutting their doors and instituting temporary ‘stay-at-home’ policies to prevent the risk of spreading the virus. Several colleges on the east coast are telling their students to stay at home, while larger institutions like NYU are shifting to online-based courses as a stopgap solution. Companies like Google and Washington Post have shut their offices too, and I can only imagine what living in parts of China, Italy, South Korea, Japan, and Iran feels like, where the situation on the ground is even more serious.

If you’re a designer or student who’s being told to work/study from home, here are a few ways to avoid the stay-at-home blues and actually be productive and get stuff done.

Separate your Work Life and Home Life

The biggest problem, or complaint rather, with working from home is that it undermines the sanctity of your home being your place of zen, to escape work. People prefer keeping their work in the workplace, and not bringing that stress back home with them… so when you have to reply to emails, make powerpoints, or attend conference calls from the comfort of your bed, that boundary gets blurred.

If you want to effectively work or study from home, un-blur that boundary by separating your workspace from your home space. Fix a designated spot like a desk or the dining table for your working or studying rather than opening your book or laptop in bed. Being productive is a state of mind and needless to say, being in bed won’t help you reach it.

Take breaks / Stay Social

Nobody ever works or studies non-stop for 5-6 hours. Every couple of moments, you feel inclined to stretch, talk to the person beside you, or convene near the water-cooler for some chit-chat. When you bring work home, it’s important to bring that work culture home too. Keep in touch with friends or colleagues via chatting apps. If you’re more of a lone-wolf at work or school, try surrounding yourself with chatter by listening to music or a podcast. If you like reading articles, I recommend checking out Read2Me, a website that does a pretty amazing job of reading out articles to you.

Reward yourself by setting goals

Sometimes (if you’re a little like me) those breaks become a little longer than usual. A 10-minute coffee run perhaps stretches to half an hour long. You promise to watch one YouTube video suddenly you realize you’ve wasted half a day. The best way to hack yourself into being productive is to use the carrot and stick tactic. Start looking at that break as a goal you need to achieve by completing a task. Rather than just getting up to grab a coffee at a certain hour, allow yourself the coffee only after having completed a task or a chapter. That way, the break feels more deserved, so taking a few minutes extra won’t matter either… because you got work done in the process!

Learn a new skill / Work on a passion project

Here’s where working/studying from home is truly a blessing in disguise. It gives you the independence and freedom to actually focus on stuff you wouldn’t be able to at work or in college! Try learning new software, reading a book, building or updating your portfolio, or working on self-initiated projects! You could finally carve out a few hours in the week to take part in one of Instagram’s many designing and rendering challenges, or better still, work on an idea for a product you’ve had in your head for a while now. And when it’s ready, send it over to a design competition, or submit it to us and maybe it could get featured on a design blog!

The absence of a boss’s supervision or a college’s rigorous schedule can be exploited to achieve amazing things!

Give yourself something to look forward to

Some people love working from home, some people don’t. That’s just how the cookie crumbles. If you’re the latter, just remember that setting goals helps you get to them. A footballer without a goalpost is just a person kicking a sphere (I made that up myself!) The best way to get through the day is to look forward to something at the end of it, like a movie or a game. Looking forward to a plan at the end of the day is a great way to get through work/studying without the blues getting to you… and while you’re at it, remember three things. Remember not to slip into bad habits like randomly opening Instagram every few minutes to check for messages, remember that this is just a temporary phase and you’ll be back at work or college before too long, and most importantly, remember to wash your hands! Stay safe, YD fam!