Rigging up the ultimate home office

Walter Knoll’s Tama Desk

The pandemic has taught all of us how to work from home. The walk to office trend, which many luxury real estate developers were trying to integrate in their townships is a thing of the past as the rich and super-rich are creating lavish, efficient and smart office set-ups right at home. 

Here, we pick some of the best office desks, chairs, lights and video conferencing systems for your home office.

Desks

Walter Knoll’s Tama Desk

The carefully crafted Tama Desk with bronze blade legs, elegant lines and terraced levels, has a balanced shape and looks royal in every space it is kept in.

MotoArt’s aviation desks

California-based MotoArt creates desks from salvaged aircraft parts. These are functional sculptural pieces that add a lot of character to any office space.

Each piece is made to order. No two parts are exactly alike, making each creation unique. Hence, prices are only revealed to the clients. But reports say some of its desks cost up to $50 million.

Luzzo Bespoke’s Bugatti Inspired Executive Desk

This Luzzo Bespoke desk is inspired by the Bugatti Grand Prix racing cars of the late 1920s and early 1930s. 

The desk has a drive gear to adjust the height. The gear is a scaled-up version of the Winfield carburetor synchronisation quadrants from a Type 57. The drawer fronts have been designed to resemble the honeycombed grill of the famous cars. 

The desk has incorporated an Apple Mac computer, which is deployed by a motorised mechanism and disappears into the desk when not in use. The desk, with self-closing lockable drawers, is finished in French racing blue lacquer with a tan leather writing area. It is priced at $200,000 plus.

President Table by Bentley Home

The aerodynamic style of the silhouette is an exact reference of the world of automobiles, in the movement of full and curvy volumes of the structure, entirely covered in light-coloured leather, and the top with a surface in leather, glass or briar root.

Beyond Designs Study Console 

Beyond Designs’ long study console has a leather and brass inlay top and brass handles and legs. Its wooden body has a black matt finish.

Giorgetti’s Tycoon Executive Desk

Executive desk with two four-drawer chests and one door comes with internal open compartments. The structure and the dividers of the top are made in poplar plywood and solid maple. The top is available in saddle leather or in Indian rosewood.

 

Cor Workstations

German furniture company Cor has launched a collection of compact workstations. It includes sofa systems, armchairs, writing tables, desks and level desktop partitions, which make for a compact cubicle in the house.

The Floater desk with an upholstered outer shell is equipped with veneered tabletops, powder-coated MDF panels or HPL panels.‎ It has two electrical connections and an optional swivel drawer.‎ The higher model variant also includes a shelf.

The Floater Sofa is the first working lounge concept by Cor. It comes with a high and low back and two to three seats in ash or oak wood. The Sofa also has space for notebooks and blocks, a dedicated power connection, and the solid wood structures are combined with an upholstered outer shell, seat, and back cushions.

‎Book shelves

Albero by Poltrona Frau

Designed in the late ’50s by Italian architect and designer Gianfranco Frattini, the Albero bookcase is associated with the Neo-Liberty period in the 1950s, when floor-to-ceiling bookcases, which made up the central piece of an office or home, were very popular. 

Cipriani Homood bookshelf 

This metal bookcase from the Dragonfly collection has wooden shelves and velvet lacquered doors and drawers.

Hector bookcase

The modular bookcase is designed to achieve light and airy compositions, of any length and as tall as you like, thanks to the modular elements it is made from. Solid wooden or extruded aluminium tray-like shelves, with rounded edges on the corners, the bottoms of which can be made of glass or wood, are hooked to the uprights.

Stele

Stele is a middle-room bookcase with rigorous geometry, planned to suggest a new interpretation of the living area. The bookcase’s primary geometry was obtained through the technology of water jet glass cutting, which is added to an exclusive and completely invisible interlocking system to guarantee the perfect positioning of the open compartments.

Genesis bookshelf by Visionnaire

Designed by designer La Conca, the Genesis Bookshelf is a slender structure with an exclusive aluminium post and an invisible wiring and attachment system that permits totally free placement of shelves and accessories.

Lights

IC Light

This white table lamp looks like a beautiful balloon and provides diffused light. It has a frame in brass, brushed and transparent varnished or chrome steel, a blown glass opal diffuser and a dimmer on the power cord.

Reading floor lamp by Armani Casa

This floor lamp with a V-shaped shade is made in Italy. The whole structure is in brass with the shade and the stem covered with leather. The shade can be oriented and features an on/off switch integrated on the back. The intensity of the light can be adjusted as well.

Baccarat, Baby Candy Light Wireless Nomadic Lamp

This lamp series is designed in red, bronze, matte white and matte black. The collection, designed by Spanish artist and designer Jaime Hayon, ‘has the attraction of a character in a play, ready to go on stage – all restrained but elegant, unashamedly possessed by its history,’ reads the product description on hayonstudio.com

Emel Hand Blown Lights

The Emel collection of hand blown lights focuses on the spherical shape--a soothing and elemental shape that brings energy to a space.

Video Conferencing Set-up

More often than not the in-built quality of mics of most laptops and desktops isn’t great. Hence, it’s best if you invest in an external mic.

Rode NT-USB Condenser microphone

This is a high quality studio microphone that has USB connectivity. It captures ultra-low noise, has an on-mic mix control and comes with a tripod stand, pop shield and ring mount.

Blue Yeti USB microphone

This microphone’s custom three-capsule array produces clear, powerful, broadcast-quality sound for YouTube, game streaming, podcasting, Skype calls and music. It has four pick-up patterns: Cardioid, omni, bi-directional, and stereo pick-up for different uses (music, conversation) and settings. 

 

Web cameras

Just like sound, great video quality is also very important for online meetings and most tech experts suggest that one invest in a good web camera and not rely on a laptop or desktop’s in-built cameras.

CASE U HW2 1080P Webcam

This is a full HD webcam that uses a CMOS image sensor to integrate a colour noise reduction circuit, which obtains a stable picture at a speed of 30fps. The four-layer anti-glare lens provides clear images and clear video.

This simple plug-and-play device’s best feature is its privacy protector, which minimises the risk of hacking. Open the webcam protection cover when needed and cover your webcam when not in use.

It also has two built-in stereo microphones, which can automatically reduce noise and make calls and recordings clearer.

Logitech HD Webcam C615

With this device, you can capture high-resolution photographs and videos. Its 360-degree swivel design lets one capture videos at the right angle. This way, you can add more people in the frame while video calling. It’s equipped with Fluid Crystal Technology and Vid HD, and Automatic Low-Light Correction.