Herman Miller’s sleek new standing desk is actually a four-legged table

[ResidentialBusiness]

The standing desk is old news. Behold, the standing table. 

Herman Miller just released a new design that takes the concept of a standing desk to a whole new level. The Spout Sit-to-Stand Table comes in a range of sizes, from 2-by-4 feet to a whopping 4-by-7 feet, supports up to 400 pounds, and can seat a whole team rather than just one worker. That’s because it breaks a key form factor that most other standing desks follow: the number of legs in use. 

The vast majority of standing desks have only two motorized legs, mostly because they’re easier to stabilize and engineer to move seamlessly. Meanwhile, the Spout table stands on four legs, allowing chairs to be placed comfortably on all sides of the table.

[Image: Herman Miller]

“The biggest challenge in designing a four-leg solution was creating a rigid and stable platform that could seamlessly support large surfaces,” a Herman Miller spokesperson shared with Fast Company. “The design team and engineers tackled this by developing an elegant 360-degree understructure that not only enhances stability but also scales across multiple sizes, from 24”–48” deep and 42–84” wide.”

[Photo: Herman Miller]

A four-legged standing desk isn’t unheard of (in fact, Herman Miller offers a leather-wrapped version), but you’d be hard-pressed to find one with 28 square feet of surface space. And, whereas most standing desks on the market tend to live within a minimalist color palette, the Spout can be customized with a wide range of surface materials, edge details, and leg colors, like dusty blue or fire engine red. To keep the table’s profile sleek and elegant, its engineers also had to ensure that all of its moving mechanics—like the motors and drive assembly—would be tucked out of view inside the legs themselves.

[Photo: Herman Miller]

“The team devoted countless hours to ensuring that every line and radius aligned perfectly,” the spokesperson said. “While the table may appear elegantly simple, the precision and complexity behind its design are anything but.”

Buyers of the Spout table will certainly be paying for this attention to detail. The price of the table varies widely depending on the size you choose and how you personalize it (see a guide here), but the three standard sizes currently available for purchase on the website start in the mid-$2,000s. For a Herman Miller product, this isn’t exactly a surprise. Many of the company’s office goods have make up their pricey costs not only in their high-quality materials, but also in their status-signaling cachet (see the Eames lounge chair’s recent renaissance among tech bros).

Personally, I’d want my $2,000 desk to come with just a bit more opulence. Still, for any work-from-home tech couples out there or office managers looking to literally level up their space, this might just be the perfect product.

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