Few spaces have a reputation as poor as the interior of a public institution. The tax office, the court, the clinic, the social security office – in the collective imagination, these are places where you wait, stand in line and sit on a hard chair bolted to a row of identical chairs.
For decades, furniture in public institutions was designed as if discomfort were built into its very function. As if an institution, by definition, didn’t have to be welcoming. That is changing – and not because of a fashion for pretty interiors. It is changing because institutions have begun to understand that the user experience translates into very concrete things: the stress level of the people handling their affairs, the comfort and turnover of employees, the number of conflicts at the counter, the way a citizen perceives the state they are dealing with.
And one of the most important tools for shaping that experience is something seemingly mundane – furniture.
Why does the user experience in an institution depend on furniture?
In a public space, furniture is not decoration. It is the interface between the institution and the person. It is on the waiting-room chair that a citizen spends their waiting time, at the counter that they hold a conversation about their case, on the bench in the hall that they rest between one window and the next. Each of these contacts is an experience that adds up to a general impression: “this place is welcoming” or “this place wears me down”.
The crucial point is that in a public institution the user has no choice. They cannot go to a competitor if the service is uncomfortable. They are dependent on whatever they find – often in a state of stress, fatigue or uncertainty about their own situation. All the greater, then, is the responsibility that rests on the designer: it is they who decide whether the space will ease that situation or deepen it. Good public-interior design is not an aesthetic luxury, but a real tool for lowering tension and building trust.
Four modes of using an institution. Four different needs
A public interior serves several groups of people at once, each of them in a different mode. Good design starts with recognising these modes, because each places different demands on the furniture.
The first mode is waiting. People waiting to be seen spend the most time in the space – sometimes a few minutes, sometimes hours. For them, what matters is comfort over a longer period of sitting, a sense of some privacy and the possibility of separating themselves from the crowd. The second mode is handling a matter – contact with an employee at a counter or service station, a moment that is often stressful and calls for a degree of discretion and comfort on both sides. The third mode is work – the institution’s employees spend the whole day in this space and need ergonomics, acoustics and conditions that support concentration despite constant movement. The fourth mode is moving around – people searching for the right window, moving between floors, orienting themselves in the building. For them, the space has to be legible, and the furniture must not hinder navigation.
One interior, four modes, four different needs. The art of designing an institution lies in serving all of them without building four separate spaces.
The waiting zone. Comfort that lowers tension
The waiting room is the heart of the institutional user experience – and most often its most neglected part. Rows of hard chairs joined together, set with their backs to the walls, communicate one thing: “this is not a place for you, this is a place to wait out”. And yet it is precisely here that it is decided whether a person will leave the institution tense or calm.
A good waiting zone offers, above all, comfort during longer periods of sitting. The Nebula collection answers this need well – comfortable seats with carefully considered ergonomics, complemented by a system of screens mounted on the sofas and armchairs, which make it possible to create a sense of privacy even in a crowded waiting room. Nebula was also designed with older people in mind: an additional metal armrest provides stable support when standing up, which in an institution serving seniors, people with disabilities and patients is a feature that cannot be overvalued.
It is worth varying the types of seating within a single waiting room. Some people prefer to sit in a group, some need seclusion, someone arrives with a child, someone with a suitcase. Modular seating systems such as Snake allow layouts to be built to fit the actual shape of the hall – from simple benches, through wave-like runs, to enclosed islands of seats that wrap around the space. It is a solution that turns an impersonal row of chairs into a considered structure responding to the different needs of those waiting.
For spaces where flexibility and mobility matter – for instance, where the layout has to change depending on the volume of traffic – the poufs from the Volt collection, available in a version with hidden castors, come into their own. They can be quickly repositioned, added at peak hours and stored away when the space empties out.
The service zone. Discretion and comfort on both sides of the counter
The moment of handling a matter is often the most sensitive point of contact with an institution. A citizen talks about their situation – sometimes difficult, sometimes embarrassing – and if they do so in conditions where the whole queue hears every word, the experience immediately deteriorates. Discretion at the service station is not a question of comfort, but of the user’s dignity.
Here furniture plays a role that is easy to overlook. The Quiet upholstered acoustic partitions, filled with sound-absorbing material, make it possible to carve out service zones and reduce reverberation, so that a conversation at one station doesn’t carry across the whole room. They connect at any angle, so they can be used to fit the space to a specific layout of windows and create semi-private conversation zones without rebuilding.
On the other side of the counter is the employee – and their comfort is part of the equation too. An ergonomic seat, on which one can comfortably work through an entire day of service, translates directly into the quality of that service. A tired, aching employee serves worse, regardless of good intentions.
The work zone. The institution’s employees are its users too
The institutional user experience is usually discussed from the citizen’s perspective. But employees spend eight hours a day, five days a week in this space – and it is largely their comfort that determines the quality of the whole experience. An institution that wears down its own employees will not be welcoming to citizens.
The back-office areas of an institution follow the same principles as a good commercial office: they need focus zones, acoustics and ergonomics. The Quiet partitions help carve out quiet workplaces in open-plan areas, while the modular seats and media-port modules from the Frame collection allow both focus zones and spots for short, informal team huddles to be created. Frame also responds to the needs of neurodiverse people – through the ability to shut out an excess of stimuli – which in a large, diverse public organisation has real significance.
The movement zone. Furniture that helps you find your way
The final mode is moving around. Large institutions can be disorienting – many windows, floors, departments, and the user often doesn’t know where to go. Furniture can help with this or get in the way.
It helps when it becomes part of a legible structure of the space: seating zones mark orientation points, modular runs guide the eye, thoughtful placement of furniture creates natural paths of movement. It gets in the way when it is arranged chaotically, blocks passages or blends into the background so completely that the space becomes illegible. A well-designed hall uses furniture as an element of wayfinding – not replacing signage, but supporting intuitive orientation in the building.
In movement zones, accessibility also matters: appropriate seat heights, armrests that make standing up easier, space for wheelchairs and people using crutches. A public institution by definition serves everyone – including older people, people with disabilities, families with children – so universal design here is not an option, but an obligation.
How to design a welcoming institution? Guidance for the designer
Designing a public interior for the user experience rests on a few principles worth keeping in mind from the first sketch.
Start with a map of modes, not a floor plan of rooms. Identify who uses each part of the space, and in what mode – where people wait, where they handle their affairs, where they work, which way they pass through. Only from this does the choice of furniture follow.
Vary the seating in waiting zones. A uniform row of chairs doesn’t serve the varied needs of those waiting. Mix types: group seating, secluded spots, seats with armrests for older people, space for families.
Treat acoustics as an element of dignity, not just comfort. The discretion of a conversation at the window and the reduction of noise in a crowded hall directly affect how a citizen feels they are being treated.
Design universally. An institution serves absolutely everyone, so accessibility – heights, armrests, manoeuvring space – has to be built into the project from the start, not added at the end.
Remember contract durability. Public interiors are among the most intensively used spaces there are. Furniture has to meet the standards for public spaces, have fabrics with high abrasion resistance and a construction designed for extreme loads.
A good institution starts with how we feel inside it
For years, the public interior was designed as if its only function were to hold people. Today we know its function is something more: shaping the experience of a citizen’s contact with the institution. And that experience plays out, to an enormous degree, at the level of furniture – what we sit on while waiting, what we sit at while talking through our matter, how legible and welcoming the space is that we move through.
For the designer and the public investor, this is a shift in thinking: furniture ceases to be a line in the cost estimate and becomes a tool for building the relationship between the institution and the person. An office that doesn’t wear you down, a court that doesn’t intimidate, a clinic that doesn’t stress you out – these are not utopias. They are a matter of design. And very often a matter of furniture.
FAQ
Why does interior design affect the user experience in a public institution?
In a public space, furniture is the interface between the institution and the person – it is what a citizen waits on, what they sit at while handling their matter, what they rest on between windows. Because the user of an institution has no choice and is often in a state of stress, the quality of this contact directly affects the level of tension, the sense of being treated with respect and the overall impression of the visit. Good design here is not an aesthetic add-on, but a real tool for lowering stress and building trust in the institution.
What furniture works well in the waiting rooms of public institutions?
In waiting rooms, what matters most is comfort during longer periods of sitting and a variety of seating types. Comfortable collections with attention to ergonomics and accessibility work well (such as Nebula by KLEIBER, with armrests that make standing up easier for older people), along with modular systems that allow layouts to be fitted to the hall (such as Snake) and mobile poufs for flexible arrangements (such as Volt on hidden castors). It is worth varying the seating – some people prefer a group, some need seclusion – and taking care of a sense of privacy, for example through screens mounted on the seats.
How can discretion be ensured at a service station in an office?
Discretion at the window is provided above all by upholstered acoustic partitions (such as the Quiet collection by KLEIBER), which reduce reverberation and make it possible to carve out semi-private service zones. They connect at any angle, so they can be used to fit the space to the layout of stations without rebuilding. Thanks to them, a conversation about a citizen’s matter doesn’t carry across the whole room, which directly affects the user’s sense of dignity and comfort. It is a solution that works immediately, without any interference with the building’s structure.
What is universal design in the context of public institutions?
Universal design is an approach based on the assumption that a space must be accessible to all users, regardless of age or ability. In a public institution, which by definition serves absolutely everyone – seniors, people with disabilities, families with children – this means, among other things, appropriate seat heights, armrests that make standing up easier, and manoeuvring space for wheelchairs and people using crutches. Accessibility here is not an option or an add-on, but an obligation built into the project from the first sketch.
How can a single institutional hall serve waiting, service, work and movement at the same time?
The foundation is recognising the different modes of using the space and choosing furniture for each of them, without building four separate rooms. Waiting zones need comfortable, varied seating; service zones need acoustics and discretion (Quiet partitions); employee work zones need ergonomics and concentration (Frame, Quiet); movement zones need a legible placement of furniture that supports orientation in the building. Modular, mobile collections allow a single space to serve all these modes, while universal design and contract durability ensure the solution works for all users for years.
