Your word for the day is “brutalism,” which does not derive from the word “brutal” but in fact from a French term for “exposed concrete.” Brutalism is all about designing something to look solid, industrial, fortified, and purpose-driven.

So, this standing desk space is a minimalist tribute to workaholics everywhere. This efficient office space makes use of a Harry-Potter-like space under the stairs with a half-grade sink into the ground and a window that puts the grass outside at chin level. If you’re tired of elaborate office setups that look like they’d take Frank Lloyd Wright a year to build, here’s one office that looks like you could set it up using only scrap furniture salvaged from the freebie section on Craigslist.

 

It’s possible that this time, they might be pulling our leg. There’s Winston Churchill and his cigar at a standing desk, and he didn’t need design websites to tell him that it was a good idea. So maybe we’ve simply discovered again what once was old.

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You could go one step further and clip a desktop onto the top of an office chair itself, making a mobile standing desk on wheels. It exists, and it’s called the “StorkStand.” This is possibly the most efficient deployment of the concept of a standing desk. The only way you could use fewer materials is to have a waist-strap assembly that you wear while walking around. The unsteady support of such a contraption might render typing accurately a bit difficult, but that’s nothing in an era where most people are used to typing with one thumb while driving the car.

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As for Lloyd Alter, he asserts that he stays mobile by walking around the house… We pause and reflect that he’s not talking about a treadmill or big wooden hamster wheel here, but just walking around on the floor. Well, yes, the floor. It does come in handy for something, doesn’t it?