To those who never find time.
Nordic rack and office™ is invented by passionate sportsman, coach and engineer Lauri Hulkkonen who have had a leading role in the creation and brought to the market a proven number of very successful products and concepts.
Co-founder Jukka Mäennenä M.Sc. (Eng) has extensive experience as a physical coach, with a strong technical foundation. He is deeply interested in the intersection of human performance in sports, work and life balance, and how it can be improved. Additionally, he is an acclaimed author, columnist, and lecturer, and holds various education certifications.
The Dilemma and the Solution
Sports and strength training has been a part of the daily routine of busy entrepreneurs for over two decades.
The events of 2020 and the ensuing restrictions were the catalyst for developing a new solution. How to maximize the utility of space found in the home and/or office and make training as easy and convenient as possible while minimizing the time needed for commuting?
For the active trainee, lifter or athlete focused on field or outdoor sports, a power rack is one of the most versatile pieces of equipment when it comes to training. Very few have the required space for such equipment at home. However, everyone has enough space for a work desk since it’s a mandatory household item. A small-scale revelation was that both utility items require approximately the same amount of floor area. Could the functions of these utility items be combined into a good-looking package?
After thorough investigation it turned out that
products that transition from a workstation to a power rack do not exists.
Lauri, who has extensive experience in designing interior layouts and demanding mechanical systems, got to work. Jukka provided feedback and ideas to the fast-evolving design by listing what functions and features the rack should have from a training perspective. Some of the criteria – which were fulfilled with flying colors – included things like similar space requirement to a normal desk, appearance should resemble traditional furniture as much as possible, and that the rack needs to be transformed into a desk (or the other way around) in less than a minute.
After 10 months of continuous designing, prototyping and iterations… the Nordic Rack was born.
The Nordic Rack is multi-purpose interior element which is designed to fulfill the needs of an active trainee as well as professional working in the information sector and thus spending big part of his day on a desk.