A hybrid panorama: reshaping the workplace with Fantoni’s new modular system

The workspace as we once knew it is changing. Post-pandemic, far fewer of our lives are defined by the distinctions between home and office – and the shifting demands for how the two might be more holistically entwined are an ever-more integral requirement for those tasked with reconceptualising the way we work.

Enter Fantoni – a five-generation Italian company founded by Achille Fantoni in 1882, and a pioneer in the production of MDF, chipboard panels and office furniture. Its Panorama collection, launched earlier this year at Milan’s Salone del Mobile, seamlessly responds to this new reality. The project, created with Ben van Berkel and the collaborative Dutch design firm UNStudio, is a ‘human-centric landscape’ of modular partition panels (in 20 compositions and three different heights, offering varying levels of privacy), soft seating and fixed and temporary workstations – as well as accoutrements like coat racks, magnetic cable runs and monitor suspension systems.

Conceptually, Panorama pivots around the concept of the ‘third spaces’: hybrid zones merging home (the first space) and office (the second), in which to work, meet and relax. ‘I wanted,’ explains Van Berkel of the approach, ‘to create a completely new and comprehensive landscape that would meet all the requirements of a modern shared workspace.’

In practice, this sees the elements of the system designed to support three office-relevant categories: ‘Learning & Focus’, for periods of concentration, booths for video calls, meeting rooms and a variety of work areas; ‘Collaboration’, a stimulating environment to encourage creative work, with brainstorming spaces and sitting and standing meeting areas; and ‘Social’, which comprises more flexible relaxation and breakout zones, envisioned as less traditional workspaces.

Collectively, Panorama explodes and expands the office’s conventional grid layout – a system indisposed to spontaneous interaction. That might sound outré in concept, but the playfulness is rendered visually, too – the panels’ black edging offset by a range of colour choices, from allura red to ocean blue. More inspired still, the staggered composition of the panels was devised by Van Berkel to evoke the mountainous landscape around Fantoni’s HQ and factory in Osoppo, near the Austrian and Slovenian borders in northeast Italy.

‘I have always enjoyed walking in the mountains because it brings me a kind of peace and level of contemplation that nothing else can,’ explains Van Berkel. Reflecting this, ‘the system can visually break up the horizontal plane of the typical office floor and create more engaging and composed, or choreographed, interior views.’ This aesthetic flexibility is, perhaps, Panorama’s defining feature; the array of compositions, colours and functions making it a truly customisable system, rather than a collection of individual furniture pieces merely arranged together. ‘And if those needs change over time, they can easily reconfigure the system to suit.’

As well as a progressive practical remit, sustainability is also at the core of Fantoni’s products. Its chipboards – central to Panorama – are made entirely from recycled post-consumer wood. The company’s Plaxil 8 plant produces MDF in which the core layer is over 50% recycled material (a world first). Its panels are all made on the Fantoni campus, with zero mileage; and 98% of the company’s furniture components are recyclable. It’s an impressively comprehensive take on a green approach.

Crucially, the thinking at the heart of Panorama isn’t merely a novelty reaction to the way we work now. It is, explains Van Berkel, a nascent model for the future. Home-working is prevalent, he says, but a shift back to collective spaces is inevitable. Socialising as an exchange of ideas is still essential to creativity and innovation – and the modular freedom of Fantoni’s new system hones this into something truly organic.

‘Companies today have to gauge how many concentrated workplaces they need to provide and how much space should be dedicated to teamwork and social activities,’ he concludes. ‘And of course, how to choreograph this within their buildings. As the balance of the demand will inevitably change over time, you really need a very flexible system that can change with you.’

‘Panorama is designed to facilitate all of this.’

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