When Koray Malhan – the Chief Design Officer of Turkish workplace furniture manufacturer Koleksiyon – soft launched the brand and its products at Vanguard recently, there was an element of surprise around the sound of words such as ‘pathos’, ‘ethical values’, ‘linguistics’, ‘semiology’ and ‘composers’ ringing through the showroom.

Malhan’s presentation was as much a theoretical positioning statement about how we can work (drawing on a variety of humanities disciplines) as it was an insight into the Koleksiyon catalogue. It was far from the typical brand presentation. And it was gripping!

Today, design is very much focused on aesthetics, said Malhan. But instead, we could look at workplaces as an attempt to understand the age. Koleksiyon invites workers to be active and collaborative participants in workplace design solutions, and has coined the term ‘self-organised workplace’ to describe its proposition.

Koleksiyon asks: Can the workplace have an open structure rather than a top-down planning framework? Can a workplace design evolve over time rather than being absolute? Can systems within the workplace evolve through the experiences, thoughts and even dreams of people?

“Imagine a city with no public areas,” said Malhan. “It would just be building after building. It would be unbearable. But that’s what many workplaces are like. The workplace should celebrate our imagination, enrich our creative capacities and trigger our curiosity.”

Koleksiyon’s catalogue contains pieces that are open-ended in terms of possibilities for their use. Calder, for example (designed by Studio Kairos and unveiled at NeoCon 2017), is a collection of four moveable poufs (and an aluminium tray) that can be connected in a multitude of formats in collaboration-oriented areas. Power sockets are built in.

Poema, by the same designers, creates an alternate work setting with modular seat and planter units that provide an open system for a rich variety of compositions. The vibrant and cubby-like Boccaporto by Metrica is a combined seating and working unit for open and public areas. It creates an isolated space for one or two people. Both were introduced at NeoCon this year.

Tube by Studio Kairos is a flexible stacking storage system that creates empty spaces for storage or display.

Malhan’s own design, Oblivion is a conical system that carves out space and provides a system for the hanging of shelves, desktops and seating units without the use of leg supports. Aspects such as the floor and top diameters, heights, inner functions, wiring, lighting and colour can be customised by the interior designer and their client. Malhan described Oblivion as his tribute to Argentinian Nuevo tango composer Astor Piazzolla.

See select pieces from the Koleksiyon catalogue at Vanguard.