This Tiny Office Uses Collapsible Desks To Make The Most Of The Space

The task of changing around a small office space to accommodate more employees or an event can feel daunting. It might involve disassembling furniture, cramming people together, putting all of that stuff somewhere, and then putting it back together.

This is doubly true in New York, where space is at a premium and storage is scarce. Organizations like New York-based non-profit Environmental Grantmakers Association, which more than doubles in size from four people to nine in the summer, can have a particularly hard time.

Employing a technique you might have last seen in the library stacks of a college, architecture and design firm Taylor & Miller used an existing collapsible filing system to create an easily changeable office. By doing a bit of folding, and rotating some cranks, cubicles can expand to accommodate a full staff of desks, or contract to create a large open space to work collaboratively or host an event.

Here's a photo of the office with desks:

Each of the desks can fold up to make more space for an individual if less people are around. You can also see how the modules can fit together:

Just turn the cranks, and you get an instant boardroom:

Here are a few suggested layouts, and a creative team could surely come up with some more:

It just goes to show that there's a lot you can do with a small space.