Inspired by the built-in, unspoken protocols of the beloved campground, Campers&Dens take office pods way beyond the “next level”. Mark Partridge and the design team at orangebox have set their sights on intuitive spaces, where the physical space itself intuitively dictates your expected behaviour.

It is design thinking at work! And at furnify, we LOVE design thinking.

Campers&Dens is an interior architecture solution that encourages employees to minimize interruptions, collaborate efficiently, and respect each other’s different working styles.

Designer Mark Partridge says, “Campers&Dens is a complete reinvention of the built-environment interior architecture. And that architecture must extend beyond the pods, from fully-enclosed, to semi-open, to fully-open to capture those layers of privacy.”

Mimicking a campsite, he says, “When you’re inside your campervan and the doors are closed, it’s do not disturb. When you’re outside in your awning with your cup of tea or your coffee, you’re still in your own space, in our own domain, and it’s kind of an invitation only. You’re still in a private space. And then when you’re outside in the open field, then it becomes a sort of free-for-all where people can come up and talk to you.”

To achieve these layers of privacy in the office environment, the Campers&Dens product suite consists of 83 variants including Campers Meeting Pods, kinks, cabins, awnings, hacking frames, slats, and designer fabrics.

It’s Time to Hack your Office

“The fact is, it’s arrogant of us to want our pods to look like ours in every client space... We want clients to make them look like theirs... to make them unique every time,” says Mark.

The designers of Campers&Dens have a vision far bigger than mere office pods and phone booths. Everything can be adapted. Finishes, hacks, fabrics and entire sections can be swapped out, moved and removed, easily. You can even demount and move the modular system to another part of your building.

Flexibility is key.

The main building blocks of Campers&Dens are Campers meeting pods, awnings, cabins and kinks.

Pods are fully enclosed room-in-room private spaces where employees can go about their focussed work and confidential meetings in peace.

Cabins are extensions of the pod’s exterior where integrated seats, benches, and tables, can create an in-between nook to huddle into.

Awnings are semi-open arches attached to the side of the pod to create small collaborative meeting places or more informal work areas that still indicate you might need to ask permission to join.

Kinks are an architectural flourish that gives your pod the feel of “an outdoor cabin or cabana,” according to the designers.

Each of these main building blocks are incredibly customisable.

Pod walls come in glass, acoustic panels with fabric covering, whiteboards, and an assortment of laminates.

Awnings have stretched fabric options in a variety of colours and patterns, or you can opt for coloured paracord for a simple statement. Alternatively, birch plywood slats or polyester felt slats can create a more substantial division.

Evenly distributed wooden slats “hacking frames”, that hook on to the outside of the pod, can create and endless array of textures while also minimizing visual distractions, and by stretching fabrics over the ribs, you can access even more intricate and unique visual variations.

“It’s our task to deliver solutions to help you encourage everyone back to the ‘new’ workplace which will, we believe be much more focussed on collaboration and social connection... creating destinations... places you want to be in rather than place you have to be in,” the orangebox team revealed during their product launch.

Inviting people back to the office in the “new normal” is no easy task. But this too has been designed into the Campers&Dens suite.

Ventilation

If there is one thing we have learnt from COVID, it is that stale air and poor ventilation are how people get sick. That goes for many airborne respiratory viruses. 

Great ventilation comes standard with Campers&Dens. An integrated refresh button on the pod control panel, pops the roof open 20 degrees and boosts the ventilation up to full for 1 minute.

It’s a great solution to expel stale air between meetings, or even right in the middle of a meeting that is getting a bit stuffy. With Campers&Dens the air is so fresh it’s almost like you’re camping in the great outdoors.

Fire-Safety

Pods in the Campers&Dens range have louvred roofs for fire safety. When not in use, in case of fire, or when there’s a power failure, the Swiss-designed, spring-loaded louvres open up completely to allow your office sprinkler system to work its magic.

Soundproofing

Acoustic privacy is a big deal for these pods. The orangebox team says, “This new system will be our best in terms of its standard acoustic performance.”

Walls are lined with hook-based, fabric-upholstered panels that keep the internal soundscape echo-free. The core of the wall panels are acoustic cassettes that block sounds and absorb reverberation inside and out.

Each louvre blade boasts an acoustic seal, so when the pod is in use soundwaves don’t carry your confidential conversations beyond the pod.

A drop-seal on the bottom of the sliding door, and a brush seal on the back, prevents sound waves from escaping around the edges.  And with dampers and a soft-close system, you won’t even be able to slam the door when you want to rush out in a huff.

For those who need even more, the design team says, “We have options such as laminated glass panels, if needed for workspaces that have particularly challenging acoustics.”

Room Control

A PIR sensor and central wireless Casambi control hub activates everything in the pods. When you enter, you’ll be greeted by a closing roof, stylish lighting, and fresh air from the ventilation system.   

The integrated, energy-harvesting control panel on the wall allows you to tweak the environment to suit your needs. Each button press generates the energy needed to send the low-power Bluetooth signal to the Casambi control hub.

Embracing a “dark lighting” design, work surfaces are well-lit while the rest of the pod maintains a moody and energy-efficient atmosphere.

Orangebox says, “We've been really focused on energy efficiency throughout the development so all the electro-mechanical systems are as efficient as we could make them. As a result, the Campers&Dens pod uses around 50% less power than our Air3 range.”

As far as room control is concerned, you can also control your pod remotely via the  Casambi cloud, and you can even add sensors to gather data about your pod usage.

Cost-Efficient Solution

The real beauty of Campers&Dens is that everything is interchangeable, modular, and movable.

Do you need to update your office appearance? Great! Move, remove, or swop out some pieces.

Are you rebranding? Fantastic! Replace ONLY the fabric for a new look with a minimum of waste.

Are you going to a bigger office? Congratulations. There is virtually 100% re-use when your Campers&Dens need to be relocated.

And the dilapidation costs… ZERO.

Mark Partridge and his team at orangebox, set out to create a product suite that would leave office pods and phone booths eating the dust of a vintage VW campervan. And they succeeded.