Below are a compiled list of key terms that are commonly used when discussing furniture.
- Ancillary – common spaces within a building that are furnished to allow faculty, staff, and students to gather and/or host an event. Area is usually a multifunctional space with tables, chairs, whiteboards, and soft seating.
- Space planning – the practice of determining how a space is utilized to meet an end user’s needs as it relates to furniture layout, interior wall locations, room adjacencies, and occupancy.
- Task chair – also referred to as an office chair.
- Mobile ped – small file cabinet, with casters, and a cushion on top to serve as an extra seat. Frequently utilized under a sit to stand desk, to allow for pulling away from desk when lowering.
- Buoy – Steelcase product that is an alternate seat that is height-adjustable and designed to promote movement in the workplace. The curved base engages the your body’s core as you tilt, wobble, and spin.
- Tackable surface – the fabric at a workstation or cubicle that offers acoustical value but also a space to pin paper and/or pictures.
- Work surface – the top of a desk or table.
- Furniture standard – items that have been competitively bid and are part of the UC system wide furniture agreements which have been customized to establish uniformity on campus.
- Soft seating – lounge style seating that usually consists of upholstered armchairs, love seats, and sofas.
- Casters – wheels on the bottom of furniture.
- Sit to stand - a desk that raises and lowers in height to adapt to your ergonomic working environment. Sit to stand desks promote healthy work styles by encouraging movement and relief from hours of sitting at a desk.
- Desktop converter - equipment that sits on a table or desk that allows for a sit to stand option for raising a work surface and/or monitors without the investment of a sit to stand desk.
