Open plan offices aren’t big on privacy. Chances are, your private phone call will quickly become a public announcement if you raise your voice even a little bit. While you can always get a private call in by hiding under your modular desk and speaking in a hushed tone, the Firstcall Chair sounds like it’s going to offer a much better alternative.
Designed by Ruud van Wier, it’s a chair shaped like the handsets on one of those old-school telephone sets. That’s right, a chair for making phone calls shaped like a phone, ensuring everyone knows exactly what the furniture is for. Sure, this will probably look odd in a traditional office. For modern contemporary workplaces, however (especially tech offices), we have a feeling something like this is going to fit right in.
Firstcall isn’t fully-enclosed like those phone booths from the 80s, so it won’t be a good place for a modern-day Superman to change. Despite that, the partial walls created by the telephone shape should offer users enough privacy (you can easily hide your begging face while asking your wife to let you come home), while the sound-absorbing upholstery blocks noise around the office and keeps your personal conversations from escaping out to the lounger where the office gossipmonger is resting six feet away. It’s a modern, stylish, and functional take on the classic phone booth that should look great not just in offices, but malls, airports, and similar public spaces, as well.
Available in 32 colors, the Firstcall retails at Easy Noise Control for a pricey €2,900.