Finally, people in office environments are accepting the truth about ergonomics: good furniture helps worker efficiency. More and more contract furniture companies are producing great chairs meant to alleviate pressure and height-adjustable desks meant to encourage movement. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same thing about the education market, which seems to be lagging on the ergonomic front. Most school and college classrooms are still full of uncomfortable chairs and desks that do not adjust—as if the world were populated with a race of robots that all weighed and measured the same.

Rize Desk. Manufactured by Vanerum Stelter.

An Ergonomic Education

Vanerum Stelter is answering the call for ergonomically designed furniture for the education market. Their Rize Desk acknowledges what others are ignoring—that students come in all shapes and sizes. First of all, the Rize Desk is height-adjustable, so pupils tall and short can find an appropriate position: “Within the classroom or multipurpose room, the adjustment places working and typing surfaces at an ergonomically correct height for users of varying sizes.” Rize also pays attention to technology. Monitors hide beneath the desk surface when not in use, and they rise and angle when necessary so users can get “optimal viewing.”

Rize Desk offers a plethora of modifications based on specific institutional needs. From keyboard and mouse storage to CPU holders, Rize presents many choices. Schools can get an optional locking mechanism for increased security, for example. And Rize comes in all standard Vanerum Stelter finishes, including thermofoil surfaces in a range of wood and colors. Desks vary in width from 36 to 48 inches for the Single and 60 to 72 inches for the Double. Vanerum Stelter knows that “learning and teaching styles are changing,” and the company is responding to those changes with inventive, ergonomic products.

About the Manufacturer: Vanerum Stelter, headquartered in Grand Rapids, Michigan, believes in creating what they call i3 environments—“environments that are interactive, environments that are integrated and environments that inspire.” Producers of desks, seating, tables, and filing and storage systems, Vanerum Stelter integrates ergonomics and technology with tradition. The company has one simple goal: “to make the places where people study, present, communicate, teach and learn, as appealing, productive and healthy as possible.”