“Good design is a blend of art and science,” explains designer Jeff Weber. “Using that combination to positively impact how people live and work is really exciting.”

As a kid, Weber was fascinated by the way things worked. “I was always tinkering—either building things or tearing them apart,” he says. Following a suggestion from his grandfather, Weber became interested in industrial design. “I never really thought about doing anything else,” he recalls.

As co-creator of the Embody Chair, alongside Bill Stumpf, Weber worked closely with optometrists, neurologists, and other medical specialists to learn how to “support the body in a healthful way and enable motion.” The resulting design is pleasing to the eye and has been shown to lower the sitter’s heart rate and reduce stress—good for both mind and body.

For Weber, the hard work pays off when he sees someone sitting in a chair and appreciating it. “That’s the most satisfying part.”

Good design solves a problem. But how does a designer know which problem to solve? For Jeff Weber, a personal experience related to a foot injury made it clear there was a problem with standard-issue crutches.

After just two days of hobbling around, Weber was suffering from “an all-out assault” on his body. Sore armpits, irritated skin, and numb hands, stemming from nerve compression and restricting blood flow, were impeding his recovery. Clearly a problem to be solved.

Familiar with ergonomics, Weber set out to design a crutch with mobility in mind. Looking to reduce secondary injuries, conserve physical energy, and improve the overall recovery experience, the final design of Mobilegs looks more like a distant cousin of the Aeron chair than a traditional crutch. (Weber worked alongside Aeron designer Bill Stumpf and co-designed the Embody work chair.)

One of the most striking differences is the under-arm saddle. A pliable membrane sling provides suspended support, not unlike the suspension seat of Aeron, and articulates on two pivot points to keep the saddle in constant contact with the underarm. The single-component structure of the shaft “facilitates a better hip-to-hand clearance,” explains Weber, and “allows the walker to move through doorways and narrow passages more easily.”

Had designer Jeff Weber never hurt his foot, the plight of crutch users around the world may have gone unnoticed.

Featured in the exhibition is Mobilegs, from Mobi, an innovative mobility device developer in Minneapolis. Mobilegs is a breakthrough in crutch design that makes it easier, safer, and more comfortable to get around. It’s designed by Jeff Weber of Studio Weber + Associates. He also designed Herman Miller’s Embody chairs, Caper chairs, and Envelop desk, which are among the products featured in the Smart House as well.

The exhibition is the “home” of fictional, 65-ish homeowners, Jim and Sarah, who have renovated their 1960s home so that they can continue to enjoy their active lifestyle. Visitors can sit in a power-lifted chair, handle easy-to-use-kitchen utensils, scoot around the kitchen on a wheeled chair to try out lower counters, operate an easy-open window, and observe wall colors and lighting that ameliorate the impact of changing vision. The bath features a walk-in shower and reinforced wall for grab bars.

Through notes between Jim and Sarah and brief videos, visitors will be privy to the challenging decision-making process that the couple went through during the renovation and what they especially appreciate about the design features of their transformed home.

With the “Smart House” exhibit, Herman Miller, Jeff Weber, and everyone else associated with it are helping us not only understand issues of aging, but also feel better about our future. And it’s never too early for that.

Image via: University of Minnesota’s Goldstein Museum of Design

Think about crutches. Most of us don’t until we experience the difficulty and discomfort of using them. Crutches can damage nerves, arteries, and tissue, and it’s easy to slip and cause more pain or more injury.

Here’s a better way. It’s called Mobilegs, from Mobi, a Minneapolis-based designer of mobility products. Mobi, born out of Studio Weber + Associates, seeks to transform our perception and function of mobility devices like crutches, making them more comfortable, better-designed, and more customizable.

Mobilegs is so innovative, it was named Best of What’s New for Health for 2010 by Popular Science magazine, which reads, “Mobilegs takes the design to the 21st century with modern materials and careful attention to ergonomic factors (which should come as no surprise given that their inventor helped design the Aeron chair).”

That inventor is Jeff Weber, of Studio + Weber, who also designed Herman Miller’s Embody chair, Caper chair, and Envelop desk. “I work to humanize the relationship between people, products, and the world around us,” Jeff says. He was inspired by a 2005 foot injury that made him all too aware of the crutch problem. “The traditional crutch was not designed to accommodate the mechanics of the human body. Mobilegs does just that.”

In helping designers like Bill Stumpf and Jeff Weber to develop Herman Miller products—from stacking chairs, such as Caper, to high-performance work chairs, such as Embody—I’ve learned that sitting, comfort, and health are not so cut-and-dried.

In the 1990s I began using pressure map technology, which visualizes what the seat and sitter interface looks like—and how it changes depending on seat construction and the posture of the sitter. These changes translate to comfort or discomfort for the user.

More recently, in the course of our Embody chair development, I commissioned researchers at both the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago and Milwaukee’s Marquette University, who measured the amount of oxygen in the blood flowing to and from subjects’ lower extremities and heart rate–key health measures. It turns out, both improved when users sat in the Embody chair, versus other chairs, doing the same seated tasks in both.

So, it’s not a simple question of sitting down or standing up—but where and how you’re sitting.

Herman Miller hit the mark in seating and lighting, reaping two Gold and two Silver Best of NeoCon Awards. See how these award winners are helping improve the human experience in the videos below.

Our drive at Herman Miller to make the human experience better has yielded many innovations. Over the last 30 years, each of our seating products has built the foundation of research and knowledge for the next. Setu and Embody once again extend Herman Miller’s legacy of leadership in design, innovation, and sustainability.

Setu Chairs
Our new family of multipurpose seating, Setu, won the Gold Award in the Conference Seating category and the Silver Award in the Sofas and Lounge Seating category. Setu—the chair for how you work and live now—was designed by the Berlin design group Studio 7.5, who also designed the Mirra chair, a NeoCon Gold Award winner in 2003.

Learn more about Setu and Studio 7.5.

Embody Chair
Designed by Jeff Weber and the late Bill Stumpf, the Embody chair—the first work chair to support both the mind and the body—won the Silver Award in the Ergonomic Task Seating category. Jeff Weber of Studio Weber + Associates is also the designer of our Caper seating, which won a NeoCon Gold Award in 1999. Bill Stumpf, in collaboration with Don Chadwick, designed the Equa and Aeron chairs.

Learn more about Embody and Jeff Weber.

Twist LED Task Light
Yves Béhar, founder of fuseproject, has once again partnered with Herman Miller to create an innovative lighting solution. The result is the Twist LED task light, winner of the Gold Award in the Specialty Lighting category. Twist, an energy-efficient, eco-friendly undershelf LED light for systems furniture, provides value, simplicity, and personal control for office workers. Béhar also designed the Leaf personal light, winner of the Gold Award in the Lighting category at NeoCon 2006, as well as the Ardea personal light.

Intent Furniture and Energy Manager
Our space featured two other new products: Intent Furniture and Energy Manager.

Intent furniture, designed by Joey Ruiter of JRuiter + Studio, offers a new furniture solution that extends from the private office to systems workstations in the open plan. Intent furniture has a crisp, clean appearance and was designed to integrate physically and aesthetically with Vivo interiors.

Learn more about Intent furniture and Joey Ruiter.

Energy Manager is an electrical circuit control system connected between building power and Herman Miller systems modular power. It can provide programmed or occupancy-based control of power delivery to two of the typical four circuits within a cluster of up to eight Herman Miller workstations. This allows individual worker or owner control of powered devices so they are on only when needed, and off when workstations aren’t occupied. That saves you energy and reduces costs.

Learn more about Energy Manager.

By Marcia Davis

To find out more about Embody, Marc Levin of OfficeDesigns.com interviewed Jeff Weber, designer of the Embody chair. Here are excerpts from that interview.

Marc Levin: How long was it from conception to production of the Embody chair?

Jeff Weber: We began midway through 2002 with a premise; we didn’t attempt to see around the broad shoulders of Aeron at that point in time, instead we researched the way people are working.

We did not begin by attempting to design a chair; instead we went back to school, to get a better understanding of how people were working. From that point of view, we established a number of fundamental constraints, one that the current work environment is primarily computer based.

Then we developed a number of hypotheses, which we would test with people from a diverse range of experts in critical fields. The most important hypothesis: Can we positively affect the health of the individual seated worker through the design of a chair? We began to test that hypothesis with various experts in the medical field and in ergonomics and the overwhelming answer was yes, you should pursue this, it’s possible. We began to generate a formula that would allow us to achieve health-positive effects through the design of the chair.

There were several months of research, then the concept-development phase. It took two years of pure research and exploration, then about four years of intensive product development.

ML: Word on the street and blogs that I’ve read are calling the Embody chair “the next Aeron.” Was it your idea that Embody would replace the highly successful Aeron chair?

JW: Our intent was not to replace the Aeron chair. If you look at the lineage of the work chair designs by Herman Miller—including Ergon, Equa, Aeron, and now Embody—all are designed to coexist and are credible alone. The advancements in the predecessors have allowed us to produce the successor. In terms of knowledge, I see Embody as the next evolution in that lineage.

ML: Tell me about your thought process: Aeron comes in three sizes; Embody is one-size-fits-all.

JW: In 1994 we didn’t communicate using a computer and we didn’t search the Web like we do today. So Aeron was a predictor of the future and people’s changing relationship with the computer. It introduced new technology—mesh suspension versus foam and fabric—which produced a very unique design problem: How do you accommodate the wide variety of users’ sizes? The solution was to produce three graded sizes of architecture.

Every other intimate relationship we have with our bodies—clothing, footwear, and so on—are tailored to fit very well. So we tried to accommodate the breadth of people in the best way we could with a single size chair platform, through a discreet series of adjustments and forms that would allow us to achieve that accommodation.

From our research, we knew that if we could produce one size platform, large corporate customers would embrace the idea, so they wouldn’t need a number of different size chairs, even from an ergonomic point of view. Embody allows even the smallest person to enter the chair and gain support. Embody fits the vast majority of the population extremely well. From a humanistic point of view, it’s wonderful to fit all sizes.

ML: With Embody, the design and technology of the woven plastic allows for support that mesh and fabric on foam can’t, correct?

JW: Yes, Embody is the re-materialization of the work chair. The primary premise of Embody is healthful support and movement and to introduce a greater level of movement into the equation whether it’s macro or micro movement. This forced us to produce a narrow back support shape, which allows full range of movement for your arms.

The theory of support logic had to be changed as well. For Celle, Mirra, and Aeron, the support comes from the perimeter of the chair, as compared to Embody where we’re attempting to support the trunk of the human body via the center line of the spine, so that forced us to develop what we call pixelation—a concept that enables the individual programmability of each one of those points that exist on the back and under the seat.

Characteristically, the Embody chair support produces the best attributes of foam, softness to the touch, and finite conformation coupled with the essence of Aeron’s Pellicle technology, which breathes and generally conforms very well. Embody is the synthesis of both technologies; it breathes, it is soft to the touch, it includes both micro and macro conformation without the use of any foam.

ML: The idea of exposing the support structure in back – was that basically for design reasons?

JW: We adhere to the principle that form and function are one. The goal is always to produce an honest expression of form and function. This chair is not a minimalist expression of design but a rich and soulful visual feast. The aesthetic makes you wonder; it’s provocative. This approach also optimizes the material use and is actually cost efficient, eliminating material redundancies. It also allows us to meet green design aspirations.

ML: Are you concerned that customers will say it “wiggles?”
JW: (Laughs) Motion is a key to good health. One of the ways to elevate a person’s health is through motion. If you look underneath, you’ll see a composite structure of coil springs and elastic bands. The black lateral band behaves like Pellicle and the coil springs behave like bed springs, which produce the softness associated with foam.

ML: We’ve had so many customers ask us why Aeron had no headrest. Why doesn’t Embody?

JW: Medical and ergonomic schools of thought vary significantly on that point; our camp doesn’t believe in supporting the head in work-related postures.

ML: But our customers want to recline, put their feet up and sleep at their desks. (Laughs)

JW: This is understandable. And recline postures are good. Embody encourages people to work and relax in reclined positions without the need of head support. It achieves this via the counteracting kinematics and the instinctive back. It’s difficult to support the head, so if we couldn’t do it properly, we decided not to do it at all. Embody provides a rich sitting experience and will surprise sitters with hidden goodness.

Did you notice the tilt function? As it moves the body through space it continually aligns the eyes to the horizon as your recline. It articulates the thoracic region, with your head in balance, without producing stress. Thus, no headrest is needed.

Then there’s the “kicker.” Are you near a chair, Marc? Put the chair upright. Now apply force to the upper part of the back and notice the articulation of the lumbar region. Even in the most static condition, there’s articulation and continued support. Put your hands behind your head in full recline and extend your spine. When you need to extend your spine (stretch), Embody allows you to do it while maintaining support. In the extended position, someone could use a headrest, but we’re not advocating staying in this position for an extended period of time.

The more you explore the forgiveness of the chair as a seated worker, the healthier you will be. I instruct people to exploit the forgiveness of the chair.

ML: Jeff, thank you for your time and for allowing us to have the inside story on the thought processes behind Embody. We’re fascinated by the chair.