The September desk

9/11/2026

Where to put the work

AI Generated Content

The first decision concerns the place, before the furniture. A desk pushed to the far end of the bedroom means sleeping next to your deadlines; one planted in the middle of the living room keeps work in sight on Sundays too.

AI Generated Content

The spots that work best are set aside without being hidden: the long wall of a wide corridor, the recess under a staircase, the end of a room that already has a clear purpose. Little space is needed, the right boundaries are.

Light comes from the side

AI Generated Content

At a desk, daylight should arrive from the side. From the front it dazzles, from behind it reflects on the screen, from above it carves shadows across your hands. Anyone writing by hand needs the light to come from the opposite side to the writing hand, otherwise they work inside their own shadow.

Daylight then needs a table lamp with an adjustable arm and a neutral temperature, around 4000 kelvin, to carry the hours when it is already dark outside. A single ceiling fixture, in a room where people work, is never enough.

Sitting for eight hours

AI Generated Content

The chair is the piece worth spending on, and it is almost always the first one people economise on. A proper task chair adjusts height, depth and lumbar support, and lets the back change position through the day.

AI Generated Content

The worktop wants to sit around 72 to 75 centimetres from the floor, with enough depth to keep the screen an arm's length away. These are dull numbers, but they are what separates a workstation from a table with a laptop on it.

Being able to close the day

AI Generated Content

Working from home works when there is a gesture that declares the day over. A door that closes on the desk, a box where the laptop disappears, a lamp switched off on that one corner.

Those without a dedicated room can get the same effect with a cabinet that shuts or a shelf that returns empty at the end of the day. The house has to be allowed to become a house again at seven in the evening, even when the office is three metres from the sofa.

In our showroom

Designing a home workstation means bringing together measurements, light and order, and doing it inside a room that already has other jobs. In our showroom we test chairs and worktops, and reason about where to place the desk and how to make it disappear when the day is done.

Read more: Harmony and functionality: how to organize your home workspace and the office solutions by Prof Office for a workstation that holds up through long days.