Got an unpleasant office? Need to work over that three-day weekend? Just want to look professional even though you were fired EOD? A pair of European architecture teams have you covered with these pop-up offices.

The first is a Dutch one-man team named Tim Vinke who’s already making a name at 28. The pop-up office, called Kruikantoor, looks like a foam square with wheels on one end and a handle on the other. Look closer and the handle is actually the back of a chair and that mass of foam is everything you’d need for a day of mundane office work. Mundane? No sir; I got a corner office. And look at those views!

In the brand-new corner office, there’s a pair of chairs, a table, a power strip, some space for folders. There’s even a lamp and a Dutch-orange coffee machine. It’s fitting the Kruikantoor comes from Holland, a country where they’ve built amphibious houses and manmade islands to battle the land-grabbing North Sea. It’s just surprising that Vinke built a workstation. After all, the Dutch are known for their four-day work weeks. [Courtesy of Toxel]

Further inland, Austrians Liddy Scheffknecht and Armin B. Wagner put together a less practical, seemingly unfeasible pop-up office. It’s a more classic design with one chair, a desk with a few drawers and a lot of question marks. For instance: Can you sit in a cardboard chair? Can you slam down the phone after an infuriating conversation with your outsourced manager? Is there a way to kick the ole feet up after reaching pole position on the SEO meter? [A video on Toxel]

Addition: Got a chance to chat with Liddy Scheffknecht about the cardboard pop-up desks. Turns out they’re not meant to be used. They’re satire. “The market demands flexible, mobile employees, ready to work at any time and place,” she writes. “Pop Up looks like a perfect working station for them. However, the working station is neither flexible nor solid nor practical. What seemed great and magical at first, turns out to be fragile and not functional at all. Pop Up is not an advertisement for a new type of office furniture. Pop Up criticises working conditions.”

Greg Spielberg | July 29 2011
greg@openhousegallery.org

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Talk about going mobile! Dutch architect Tim Vinke is reinventing office space as we know it. Dontcha know?

Conduct your next business meeting from a parking lot. Very zen.

Too many jobs are just intellectual. Start your day off with a bit of manual labor.

No need for a coaster. Just spill wherever you like.

Plenty of spots to tack pictures of your family, friends or officemates on this pop-up workspace.

And voila! Carbon footprint: Zero.

Austrians Liddy Scheffknecht and Armin B. Wagner never get bored at work ... they get board!

Scheffknecht and Wagner can stuff their office behind a garbage dump, hope the recyclers don't come by, and spring into action after their morning cafe.

Six Sigma says teamwork leads to better results.

Not quite multinational, but Scheffknecht and Wagner's lean startup is expanding.

The pop-up office design would even have Peter Drucker asking, "How do they manage?"

We get the drift now.

Presto. This should teach those ADD employees to sit still.

Pictures via Toxel