Winding through the subterranean showroom David Austin has carved out of his Westport, Conn., basement, one”™s head swivels to take in a dozen workstations he has crafted.
Install one in your office, and your staff will no longer have to strain their necks to take in whatever is on your computer screen.
After proposing his “Edge Desks” to major office-furniture manufacturers, Austin is going it alone with a new company by that name, producing his patent-pending workstations that allow multiple people to easily gather around and view a computer screen ”“ particularly valuable for designers and other professionals who collaborate on projects that use graphics software programs.
Call it a new desk job for Austin, the son of an office-furniture distributor who made his living designing interior spaces for companies like Tauck Inc., a Norwalk, Conn., tour agency whose office motifs echo the destinations it arranges for travelers.
If Austin”™s desk echoes any shape, it is the mathematical symbol pi ”“ perhaps an unintended irony given the desk”™s function linked squarely to its outer circumference and the vistas it allows across its diameter. Austin”™s desks feature a standard desktop area with an attached extension that circles behind the cubicle occupant to create a curvilinear seating area, in effect a mini theater allowing multiple people to get a view of a computer screen at the base of the extension.
In addition to the functionality of a collaborative work area, Austin said the design allows office tenants to save space compared to an office or cubicle needing a separate tabletop for small meetings.
Austin schooled himself on the elements of design through a mix of coursework and home study, and he is quickly getting a crash course in the office furniture market. Grand Rapids, Mich.-based Steelcase Inc. is the largest maker of office furniture today, generating a $31 million profit on $902 million in revenue for its second fiscal quarter ending in late August. Steelcase and five other companies control two-thirds of the U.S. office furniture market.
Austin at first had designs on licensing the rights to sell his desks to a titan like Steelcase, but after getting a lukewarm response he decided to push ahead on his own. Long term, he hopes to build a company with at least $100 million in annual sales.
While Austin is launching his company in a weakening economic environment, he is also doing so at a time when furniture makers and dealers are being pressed by corporations to buff up their environmental credentials. The office-furniture industry was well represented this fall at GreenBuild in Boston, a trade show sponsored by the U.S. Green Buildings Council.
For his part, in addition to using environmentally friendly materials and methods in producing his desks, Austin plans to use reusable shipping containers.
To date, Austin has shipped more than 50 desks and has nearly a dozen more in the showroom cavern he built at his Westport home office. He said he has invested about $1 million in the business to date, and did not dismiss the possibility of seeking venture-capital funding at a later point to help fund the company”™s expansion.
