Fluid architecture: System 180’s Design Thinking Line®

"We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us," said Winston Churchill of the relationship between architecture and user behaviour. Designed by us, the spaces we inhabit have, in turn, a major influence on how we act and think. The tail comes to wag the dog, so to speak.

When it comes to furniture, System 180 – the Berlin-based brand of supremely modular, customisable systems for agile working, encompassing everything from strongly graphic shelving and storage products, through room-dividing elements, to eminently configurable table concepts – is definitely wagging. And hard.

Having teamed up with boffins from the School of Design Thinking at Potsdam University’s Hasso-Plattner Institute, the manufacturer has created a furniture line that not only responds to the needs of creative teams, it also serves to drive that very creativity.

With its iterative, interdisciplinary and user-centric approach, design thinking is all about dynamism. A truly flexible space is the physical manifestation of this. System 180’s innovative Design Thinking Line of tables, boards and storage delivers this flexibility, enabling a culture of collaboration, so critical in the problem-solving process.

Castors. Lots of them. Every element within the line is fully mobile, ready at a moment’s notice to move. Clustered together for presentations and ideational exchange, or broken up for more concentrated working or prototype-building, they’re fleet of foot, in continual circulation within an open-plan space. Think of them as neurotransmitters bouncing around the brain. They get the job done.

The tables within the Design Thinking Line are set to standing height, with a below-tabletop storage compartment. Large-format whiteboards and lightweight, mobile FlexBoards, meanwhile, ensure that concepts can be expressed and thinking documented anywhere at anytime, and by anyone. And a variety of storage options guarantee the right materials are always to hand, so there’s no need to apply the brakes on that creative flow. (The only brakes are on the castors!)

What’s more, a range of finishes and surfaces, including brushed stainless steel, real-wood veneers and high-quality linoleum, create an optical and textural palette that serves to emphasise the clarity and legibility of the line’s constructional language.

Game on!

© Architonic