If you’re fitting out an office, it can be tempting to simply find one good chair and use it throughout every meeting space. The problem is that a boardroom used for three-hour meetings places very different demands on its seating than a conference space that is rearranged every week.
This guide will help you choose the best boardroom, meeting, and conference chairs for each room, then bring it all together using colour, upholstery and finish to create a cohesive fit-out.
Boardroom chairs are for lasting comfort
Board meetings, strategy sessions and client presentations can keep people in their seats for hours. When seated for that long, people naturally shift positions: they might lean back, cross their legs, and turn towards different speakers as the meeting unfolds.
A good boardroom chair supports that movement rather than holding the sitter in one fixed position. So look for boardroom chairs that offer…
- A supportive backrest and well-cushioned seat that remain comfortable throughout a long meeting.
- Synchronised recline that lets people change positions without losing support.
- Castors that make it easy to move between the table, a screen and other speakers.
Appearance matters too, particularly when the boardroom hosts clients, directors or other high-profile discussions. The boardroom will often justify a greater spend per chair. It generally requires fewer chairs than a large conference or training space, while each chair needs to deliver both long-session comfort and a finish suited to a prominent room.
The Buro Odyssey and Buro Artemis combine upholstered finishes with synchronised recline and a five-star castor base.
The Buro Artemis chairs with the Buro MyWorkSpace Round Meeting Table creates a two-person meeting space.
Meeting chairs need to match the room’s diary
Meeting rooms vary more than their name suggests. They might host a 15-minute catch-up, an hour-long client presentation, and several stretches of solo work all in the same day.
Before choosing meeting chairs for your office, look at a typical week in the room.
If meetings regularly run for an hour or more, supportive seating becomes more important. If the room shifts between group discussions, collaborative work and video calls, chairs need to be easy to shift. And if it’s booked back-to-back by different teams, durability and simple adjustments matter too.
Also consider how the chairs work around the table: whether armrests tuck underneath, how much clearance the bases need and how easily people can pull their chair in and out.
Buro’s range of meeting room chairs includes options for everything from quick catch-ups to longer working sessions.
The Buro Odyssesy chair upholstered in Tan PU
Conference room chairs: the most mobile of the lot
Conference spaces are often reconfigured throughout the week, and the chairs you choose need to keep up.
One day, they are organised into rows for a presentation. The next, they’re in a semicircle for a training exercise. Then the chairs are gone entirely, and the space is standing room only for Friday’s social event.
With this much change, the weight and ease of storage of conference chairs are a top priority. Check how many can be stacked safely, how much space a full stack occupies, the route to the storage area, and whether staff will need a trolley. A small difference in weight becomes significant when sixty chairs must be cleared before the next booking.
But don’t sacrifice comfort, as training or conference sessions run for several hours.
Conference chair options such as the Buro Maxim Sled and Buro Lindis are easy to move between layouts while maintaining a professional look consistent with the rest of the office.
Buro Maxim Sled chairs used for a conference.
Same vibe, different chair: The secret to a cohesive workspace
Once you’ve found a model that meets the practical needs of each room, you can use upholstery, colour and frame or base finishes to connect them visually.
For example, a boardroom chair might have fuller upholstery and a five-star castor base, while meeting and conference room chairs use lighter frames. Rather than matching every detail, repeat one or two elements—such as an upholstery colour, fabric family or base finish—to make the different models feel related.
If the rooms sit alongside one another, view chair samples together and compare them against the tables, flooring and joinery. Instead of trying to make every space identical, create a visual thread that carries through the workplace while allowing each chair to do its job properly.
Buro can help you find the right chairs for your fit-out
A boardroom, meeting room and conference space may sit side by side, but they’re often used in very different ways. The best fit-outs recognise those differences rather than expecting one chair to work equally well everywhere.
Rather than starting with the chair itself, start with how the room will be used, how long people will be seated, and how often the space needs to change. From there, you can choose chairs that suit each room, then use colour, upholstery, and finish to connect the fit-out visually.
To find the right boardroom chairs, meeting chairs and conference chairs for your space, find a Buro retailer or visit a showroom to try the range in person.
