U.S. offices are still only half full, even as leasing picks up, and furniture makers are redesigning the workplace to challenge the idea that there's no place like home.
At NeoCon, the commercial design industry’s annual trade show held this week at Chicago’s Merchandise Mart, workplace furniture brands rolled out products aimed at making workers at the office feel like they never got up off their own couch.
“We’ve seen a big uptick in the need for ancillary spaces and lounge spaces in a workplace. … I think they’re trying to make a place more inviting to get people to come back versus having to say, ‘You have to be in the office,’” said Laura Kaminski, public relations project manager for Haworth, a major privately held global manufacturer of workspace furniture.
The push comes as office leasing rebounds. In the first quarter, new leases totaled 120 million square feet, a 25% annual increase and the strongest post-pandemic showing, according to CoStar analysis. The gains were driven less by large blocks of space than by a higher volume of smaller deals.
That dynamic is shaping how space is designed. Rather than expanding footprints, landlords and tenants are reworking existing offices to include lounge areas, flexible seating and environments that feel more residential.
At the same time, office attendance remains stubbornly low. Data from Kastle Systems, a tracker of keycard swipes across 41,000 businesses nationwide, shows usage holding at about half of pre-pandemic levels.
The disconnect — stronger leasing alongside muted attendance — is giving companies and landlords more incentive to invest in design as a tool to bring workers back.
Haworth’s Kaminski said her Holland, Michigan-based firm is responding in kind, noting it had its most significant year yet in terms of new product releases, including expanded offerings in lounge seating, task seating and workstation systems.
Home-like furnishings to attract workers
One standout theme at NeoCon was the rise of comfortable, organically shaped lounge furniture. Haworth’s modular seating line designed by Patricia Urquiola, Sosu, emphasized plush areas with a modern playfulness. Urquiola designed products for several brands at the show.
The Sosu Sofa appears to melt into the floor, while the Sosu Lounge Chair can be wrapped in a sophisticated leather or plush fabric that resembles an upgraded bean bag. On one side of Haworth’s Gallerie workstations, traditional desks offer a standard workspace; on the other, lounge seating, tables and displays mimic a living room.
At Source International’s showroom, designed by Chicago-based Huntsman Architectural Group, the setting drew on a retro library aesthetic to create what Vanessa Englert, vice president of marketing and product, described as “a place to gather, reflect and connect” while stepping away from a high-tech environment.
“We’re finding that there are a lot of rooms that have been identified and carved out of the floor plan for focus and for mindfulness and for well-being, whether it’s a mother’s room or it’s a space intended just for respite,” Englert told CoStar News.
Some of those areas take the form of high-backed seating oriented toward walls or corners, creating a sense of separation from the workplace — a way for employees to step away without leaving the office, Englert said.
Product designer Jingwen Gu said her Reverie private lounge chair for Bernhardt Design creates “a soft, nurturing solution that wraps around the user in a very gentle and supporting way.”
Gu’s chair was one of five student-designed pieces on display at Bernhardt’s showroom, offering a glimpse into the design preferences of Gen Z workers, the cohort born roughly between the late 1990s and early 2010s. The showroom also featured a new design by actor Terry Crews, a rounded sofa with fabric and wood accents.
Employees are used to working from anywhere
Furniture makers are also offering modular pieces that add flexibility to floor plans. Arcadia highlighted its throwback, midcentury-inspired modular Almeya collection, designed by Chris and Jon Panichella.
Workplaces are adding living room-style furniture to mirror how people move through their homes, working from space to space. With technology enabling remote work, that flexibility is now shaping designs like Arcadia’s Almeya work island.
“The designers are based in Southern California near us and they’re surfers. They were at the beach one day and saw a woman on a raft in the ocean, just lounging, and she had a laptop. She was working on her laptop. They thought it was so amazing — talk about work from anywhere,” said Tammie Alciatore, Arcadia and Encore’s director of marketing. “So, they started sketching.”
Not all designs lean into softness for home-like pieces. Others, like Kettal's U-Type release and Okamura's Muku chair, instead bring the residential aspect by stripping down the traditional office chair. Instead of multiple knobs for seating adjustments, the chairs favor simpler, less technical seating. An Okamura spokesperson explained that the simplicity helps with quality of life.