Orgatec addresses the sector's key topics

The communications programme: Presentations, workshops, exhibitions

Orgatec is the fair that comprehensively addresses the sector's most important issues. The fair, which will be held from October 24 to 28, 2006 will not only offer a nearly all-encompassing overview of the world market for furnishings, acoustics, lighting and floors of offices and office facilities, it will also cover aｌｌ relevant areas in its extensive communications program. In presentations, workshops and exhibitions, Orgatec provides architects, specialist retailers, ergonomics researchers, facility operators, representatives of public organizations and commercial users with a wealth of information on the sector's key topics.

The fair also defines new trends and sets new developments into motion, while also helping participants to make connections and providing them with sales arguments and product support.

<The exhibitions>

One of the highlights at Orgatec 2006 will be the Ultima Office, which will provide the sector with a preview of the office world of tomorrow and beyond. Five visionaries from the worlds of architecture, technology and futurology will provide a personal view of what the world might hold in store for us in 2030.

Their interpretations will be combined into a combined vision that will not restrict itself to the office environment, but also showcase the future intermingling of people's private and professional lives. The Ultima Office will include the "Office Dialog," which will devote each of the five trade fair days to a different topic of current interest to the sector: "health at work," "light at work," "sound at work" and "space at work." On the first day of Orgatec, Office Dialog will commence immediately after the trade fair opens with a series of presentations titled "productivity at work." The first of these presentations will be an introduction to the Ultima Office by its creators as part of a public discussion. This will be followed by presentations on current topics from the sector as well as practical examples from the world of business, including speeches on how the office influences company decision-making processes and on the office philosophies of a number of major corporations.

The exhibition titled Furnishings & Technology will showcase the technical potential of office work and will demonstrate the many ways in which furnishings and technology can be combined to create a synthesis. In cooperation with leading suppliers at Orgatec, the exhibition organizers will, for example, display intelligent networked printing systems, centralized room and media control systems, solutions for integrating technology in floors and tables, as well as UMTS connections for working at home and video conference solutions.

Lighting will be the topic addressed in a joint exhibition by the German Lighting Technology Society (LiTG) and the Society for Promoting the Innovative Use of Daylight (FiTLicht). This exhibition will vividly demonstrate the possibilities for office design through the creative use of lighting systems. The focus of the exhibition is on light and health, lighting and feng shui, daylight and artificial light, and on European standards and the use of dynamic
lighting in offices. Within the framework of the Ultima Office, the exhibition organizers will also hold presentations for the "Office Dialog" topic of "light at work. "

In cooperation with Cologne Technical College and with support from the Architects' Association of North Rhine-Westphalia, the organizers of Orgatec have called on students to submit entries for a competition devoted to the topic of Life-long working. The results will be exhibited in the trade fair halls. The entries for this competition should show how ergonomic requirements change with the user's age and how the working environment has to change with them. The solutions should also help to reveal whether workplaces are already geared towards life-long working and in what areas there is still need for improvement.

The Best Office 2006 competition, which is being organized by Orgatec and the magazine WirtschaftsWoche, is meant to honor companies whose offices are optimally designed in line with their workflow and help boost employee productivity, creativity and flexibility. The entries will be exhibited at Orgatec, where awards will be presented to the winners.

Orgatec will be the final stop of the traveling exhibition organized by the Working Group for a New Quality of Office Work (lNQA Buro). The exhibition is the key feature of this year's campaign titled "B3 - the Office as a success factor." The exhibition will show how productivity can be substantially increased by optimizing workplaces, self-management and communication.

INQA Buro, which unites more than SO partners from the worlds of business, office design and equipment, occupational safety and health protection, and labor research, is designed to serve as an "initializing platform" for all groups interested in shaping work in offices.

With their mobile communications simulator, Akustikburo Oldenburg and the Horzentrum Oldenburg will demonstrate how acoustics fn offices can be influenced in many different ways. The system can simulate the acoustics of different rooms by varying the reverberation time. As a result, it will show trade fair participants how various solutions presented by exhibitors at Orgatec influence the acoustics of offices. In addition, the organizers will hold presentations on auditory perception in office environments.

• <ORGATEC 2006 Office & Object>
• http://www.orgatec.de
  contact: Guido Gudat
  Tel + 49 221 821-2494 Fax + 49 221 821-2105
  E- mail : g.gudat@koelnmesse.de
  
• <Koelnmesse GmbH>
• Tel: +49 221 821-0 Fax: +49 221 821-2874
  info@koelnmesse.de
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• （2006/04/27）