This is the Goggle desk. No, it has nothing to do with Google, even if you think it would sit perfectly next to a fussball table, bean bags and basketball hoops in your Google-inspired office. It is named as such because it looks like a pair of goggles a diver would wear to scuba dive.
It will cost you Dh50,000, although that does include the rather fetching credenza (the cupboard at the back). It’s only Dh25,000 if you just want the desk, available in white or black, or the cupboard – sorry, credenza.
It’s a lot to shell out for your workspace when you consider Ikea offers a perfectly good desk for Dh95.
However, if you are prepared to pay that sort of price for your office furniture you will not be the first in Dubai. An unspecified number of the Goggle desks have already sold in the UAE and that was before the dedicated showroom in Knowledge Village opened this month as part of the high-end furniture brand Babini’s global growth strategy.
The desk is designed and manufactured entirely in Italy at Babini’s purpose-built factory. The company has been struggling over the past few years with the economy in Italy and the cheaper price, quantity and growing quality of furniture from China. It found the best form of defence was attack, reshaping its business, increasing the volume of its offerings and looking to an international audience with an eye for quality and design.
Babini, founded in 1963, wanted to create an iconic product to exhibit its style and design philosophy – seeped in Italian heritage – along with its manufacturing capabilities at its Ancona base. The result: the Goggle desk. The desk itself challenged the craftsmen and women of the family-run company’s workforce, as it comprises a honeycomb of medium-density fibreboard and a variety of differing thicknesses. The surface depth moves from 9cm at its thickest to 3cm at its shallowest. There is not one linear shape in all of its edges; every design is curved. It is as difficult to put together as it is to manufacture.
For those looking for a designer desk, you won’t get much closer than the Goggle. Whether it looks ultra-modern or like a vision of the future from the past, it makes a statement that your office isn’t just focused on today.
ascott@thenational.ae
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