At play, Ruiter has stripped the bicycle to bare-nakedness, and the Inner City Bike, “a café racer with the performance of a beach cruiser,” is the result. He also tinkers with boat design. “Why are boats so complicated? A boat just needs something to make it float and something to make it go. Maybe something to sit on, too.” Ruiter’s boats are minimalist and easy to maintain; they have the lean, hungry look of a shark. He even manages to make a pontoon boat look like furniture rather than a barge.

A native son of utilitarian West Michigan with a studio in Grand Rapids, Ruiter has managed to marry his engineering bent to an artist’s eye. So we get fun bikes and boats, and some nice furniture, too.

Here are 7 questions for Joey Ruiter:

1. What are you working on right now?

My current list of work is awesomely random. A bicycle, a boat, a bathroom sink, some soft lounge pieces, and outdoor furniture, to name a few.

2. Which of your projects are you most proud of?

The really complicated projects that end up with a simple solution. Like it was there all along.

3. What inspires you? Where do you go for inspiration?

I am inspired by all sorts of people, objects, and funny things that I surround myself with. Inspiration for me is about finding the obscure, hidden, underground, collections and groups. There are so many creative and talented people from all walks of life all doing wonderful things. You need to get off the path a bit to meet them because they’re not in any fancy magazines or blogs.

4. What work do you most admire by another designer or artist?

Pioneer Raymond Loewy for creating new adjectives, thoughts, and inspiring generations; designer Marc Newson for implementing space travel; and artist Wayne Adams for thinking differently.

5. What would be your dream project?

Unlimited resources to implement creative diplomacy in our world.

6. What place in the world would you most like to visit?

After a little time in Holland, Michigan, of course, I would love to take a ride in the Dakar Rally through Chile and Argentina.

7. What one thing do you want to accomplish before you die?

I want to create a new word for an object or thought that I came up with. Words like computer, bicycle, automobile, and even panel system, were new at some point.

Here’s something kind of interesting, depending on how geeky you are:

The origin of the word “comfort” is the Latin “confortare,” “to strengthen.” When you’re comfortable, you’re free from pain and trouble. All’s well. You’re rejuvenated. Stronger. Physically and mentally.

Study after study finds that a comfortable working environment improves people’s productivity and makes them happy. It really doesn’t do us any good to suffer. And that’s why for Herman Miller, comfort is one of the most critical criteria in any new product design.

But comfort isn’t just stretching out with a cold one in a Barcalounger. It’s having the proper support for your body and the freedom to move naturally. It’s good lighting and temperature, views in and out, and having everything around you under control, right where you need it. Just as important, it’s the lack of stress. Of course, stress is synonymous with work, but anything you can do to reduce anxiety is a plus.

For example, Herman Miller research shows that storage is a primary factor in a person’s satisfaction with their work space. Typical comments from research participants include: “Stuff piled on my desk makes me anxious and nervous;” “I feel much less calm and creative when I’m not organized;” “When things are really cluttered or messy, I become irritable.”

These findings were part of the inspiration for Herman Miller’s Teneo storage furniture, designed by Ayse Birsel and Bibi Seck. Certainly Teneo helps people be more organized and uncluttered, but there’s more. Teneo’s design helps an environment be harmonious and purposeful. It’s calming, providing consistency and control amid the chaos of fast-paced work. Says Ayse, “We put the person at the center of the problem and see how we can make them more comfortable, and their life easier.” Teneo also earned the coveted Gold award from the 2009 International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) in the Office and Productivity category.

Speaking of more comfortable, meet the Setu family of multipurpose chairs from Herman Miller. Multipurpose chairs, with their typically unforgiving, one-piece seat and back, aren’t very comfortable. So Setu designers, Studio 7.5, invented a way to mimic the synchronized motion of the separate seat and back used on ergonomic work chairs. And that means more comfort in all the places we use multipurpose chairs throughout the day, like meeting rooms, cafes, learning environments, lounges, and touchdown spaces.

Still, when we’re back in our offices, we want our work chairs to be able to keep us comfortable all day if we need it. That’s where Herman Miller’s newest work chair, Embody, comes in. It not only is comfortable, it is good for you, encouraging additional air movement into the lungs to feed your brain, increasing blood circulation, and decreasing the heart rate.

Intent furniture, another new Herman Miller product, was designed by Joey Ruiter with familiar residential references, because, he says, “They add beauty and trigger a feeling of comfort. You can imagine yourself in it,” he says. Check out Intent’s raised storage deck, cabinets, and sliding-door units. See if they don’t make you feel at home.

Eyes get uncomfortable at work, too, and lighting can be to blame. It’s an often-overlooked aspect of comfort and well-being in the workplace. Being able to control lighting in your workstation can help prevent Computer Vision Syndrome, an increasingly common issue resulting from glare generated on backlit surfaces. Herman Miller’s new Twist and Flute LED task lights give you the control you need for proper illumination and vision comfort.

So you might as well get as comfortable as you can at work. And if your boss thinks you don’t look miserable enough, say, “I’m getting stronger by the minute.”

By Bill Holm

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