Due to the pandemic, city dwellers, like trapped beasts, yearn for nature and freedom, resulting in a blowout growth of camping industry. Camping has become a hot word on social medial platforms such as Xiaohongshu and TikTok. According to iiMedia Research, the core market size of Chinese camping economy in 2021 reached RMB 74.75 billion, with a year-on-year growth of 62.5%, and the market size driven by camping was RMB 381.23 billion. The core market size of Chinese camping economy is expected to rise to RMB 248.32 billion by 2025, and the market size driven by camping will be RMB 1440.28 billion. Under the general background of stagnant real estate industry and economic depression, the pandemic is not the only factor that contributes to the booming camping market. Instead, it just serves as a catalyst that accelerates the development of camping industry. The true underlying logic is that the per capita GDP of Chinese people exceeded 10,000 US dollars from 2020 to 2021, which was an inflection point in the development of outdoor sports represented by camping. In addition, according to the statistics for the inventory of auto market, the sales volume of SUV started to exceed that of cars from 2020, which made self-driving excursion on weekends a new normal.

At the beginning of 2021, Rebekka, an employee of Westermann wp3—a partner of MATSU, modified a Mercedes-Benzs Vito into a camper, and started a Workation with X-brick along the Atlantic coast.

Workation along the Atlantic coast

I set out from Stuttgart, Germany, and my planned destinations were three coastal countries: France, north of Spain and Portugal.

A problem arose: how to accommodate Xbrick in such a narrow living space?

Xbrick has a straight-sided rectangular shape, which makes it very easy for storage, without occupying any unnecessary space. During driving, I put Xbrick in the aisle from the living room to the cab of my touring car.

What did our daily Workation look like?

In the 4th week, we were travelling midway along the coast of Portugal. Sitting on the camping chair, I used Xbrick as a side table and put beverages and office supplies on it. Listening to the sea wave, I worked in the sunrise and sunset.

After work, we carried all the office supplies with us. In the camper, it is very important to always keep order. Every article shall be put in its own place, otherwise the camper will become a complete mass quickly. Our camper did not have too much space, but I had to deal with a lot of things in the living room.

Xbrick once again demonstrated its charm of multiple functions. I could sit on it, preparing a meal and washing dishes comfortably. When I placed Xbrick in different ways, it could provide different heights. Therefore, it could be used as either a low stool or a high stool.

Besides, due to the limited space in the camper, we could not carry too much fitness equipment. In this case, Xbrick could be used as a piece of temporary fitness equipment.

What is the difference between living and working in the camper and our daily office life?

The main difference between working in the camper and working in the office lies in the environment. You can feel the changes in natural landscape during the trip. If weather permits, you can spend the whole day outdoors, breathing fresh air, taking a walk on the beach, exploring a new city on the weekend, and experiencing cultural diversity. You can try new cuisine, get a new visual experience, make new friends and exchange ideas with them. When you live and work in a small camper, you will usually return to a simpler life style. Due to the limited space, all things are simplified into basic necessities. At this moment, you will once again enjoy little things in life, even a comfortable and carefree hot water shower!

But for working days, nothing is different. You need to accomplish tasks and keep contact with your colleagues.

During the workation, I found new functions of Xbrick again and again. It is very suitable to be used as a piece of modular camping furniture. If you want to get articles from the top of the camper, Xbrick can serve as a solid auxiliary tool (with a dead weight of 1.4kg, it can bear 200kg) for you to climb up to the top. It can be used as a side table when you are working, or a portable stool inside or outside the camper, or even a footstool at a guitar concert in the evening or for you to have a rest…

Not only Workation, but also nomadic office

In addition to Workaton, MATSU cooperated with Lhayak, a brand from the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, to explore the life style of nomadic office. The founder of MATSU lead a team to the nomadic region to experience life from 2021 and the design of a series of nomadic products was completed by 2022. When MATSU is persuading knowledge workers into setting foot on the Workation, the original nomadic products designed by us are on the way to future office.

The poet Arthur Rimbaud said that “life is elsewhere.” It is the same for work. Change a job, change a city, and change a city, and confess the current repressed life with possibilities brought about by such changes. So is work. Change a region, change a place, and change an attitude, maybe your vision and concept will become totally different. So, just have a Workation with Xbrick! You will experience the fresh feeling when you are working in another place and feel the magnificence of the sea. At the same time, you will be amazed that your job is such an exciting thing rather than a boring thing day after day. We don’t need to guard the ship like 1900, who strives to search an infinite world with 88 keys. We want to pull ourselves out of the traditional OFFICE constructed by industrial civilization, explore the unknown and seek knowledge to our heart’s content in the infinite future office space, and change our destiny in the countless possibilities!

Put nature in the office and put work in nature

The current office trend is to put nature in the office and the future trend is to put work in nature. Just like camping, we can break the boundary between life and nature, and remove the obstacle between work and vacation. In this way, mankind, the member of nature, will return to the place they yearn for, and industrial civilization will embrace human gene in the air.