Designer Yves Bèhar isn’t kidding when he says, “Every molecule in the SAYL chair had to work harder.” To achieve Bèhar’s vision of an eco-dematerialized design, every piece of SAYL was examined, sculpted, and hollowed out to use the least amount of material without compromising strength. Was it successful? Well, SAYL survived having a 300-pound sack dropped on it—multiple times.

The Herman Miller Test Lab, where SAYL was put through its paces, is infamous among our designers. Some have even dubbed it “the place where designs go to die.” Weights, pulleys, and pistons test every design to the brink of failure—and beyond—to ensure they meet the requirements of our standard 12-year warranty.

Engineers weren’t sure SAYL would make it. It did, thanks to some hard work making every piece work harder.

Béhar is known for design, and he makes it look effortless. Whether it’s the frameless back of the SAYL Chair or the biomorphic curves of the Ardea Light, Béhar and his fuseproject team bring years of practice and experience to every product they design.

For Yves Béhar it’s simple: “Let’s try it. Let’s see if it crashes down on top of me. Let’s see if I can actually get through it.” Is he talking about design or surf? In his mind, there’s no difference.

Yves Behar, and his passion for surfing, kicks off Why Design, a new video series featuring designers from Herman Miller’s creative network. There are eight videos in total, with a new one debuting every Monday. Stay Tuned; next week is designer Don Chadwick.

It’s a 50-cent word, but “dematerialization” just might save us millions, to say nothing of our planet. The basic idea is getting down to only what is essential, or, as Charles Eames said in the 1940s, “the best for the most for the least.”

Doing more with less certainly predates Mr. Eames, but dematerialization has had a resurgence lately, largely as a response to conspicuous consumption (McMansion anyone?), a throwaway culture (it’s cheaper to buy a new one than fix the old one), and planned obsolescence (as Annie Leonard says in The Story of Stuff, only 1% of things are still in use 6 months after purchase).

It’s no wonder those concerned about sustainability see promise in dematerialization, an idea whose logic train goes from using less material to eliminating material altogether while still delivering the same level of functionality. An example of this promise they often point to is music delivery. From LPs to cassettes to CDs to digital downloads, the progression eliminated lots of plastic waste and the resources and energy needed to make it. (The sustainability costs of using the Internet to download the music will be left to another discussion.)

We find examples of dematerialization closer to home. One is the Setu chair designed by Studio 7.5 of Berlin, Germany. The chair’s two spines provide tilt-like kinematics in one continuous seat and back, eliminating the need for a tilt mechanism.

Reducing material and actually improving a product’s performance is the theme of another chair, SAYL designed by Yves Béhar. In SAYL’s case, seat base, arm structure, and tilt mechanism undercarriage are fused into one, strong part that reduces material content. The chair’s The Y-Tower structure is sculpted and hollowed out, achieving strength with less material.

Eliminating an object altogether is the logical conclusion of dematerialization. Short of developing a way for people to levitate, we think making every molecule in a chair work harder is an acceptable alternative.

From stone-tipped axes to powerful 3D computer modeling programs, technology has always allowed design to push the boundaries of possibility.

The Atlantic recently included the Herman Miller SAYL chair, designed by Yves Béhar, on their list of designs using new technology to challenge the conventional understanding of how good design looks, feels, and functions. We are in good company. Visit the Atlantic to see the complete list.

It looks beautiful when it’s from the hands of designer Yves Béhar. Who, with Herman Miller, set out to dispel the misconception that affordable meant offhand design and questionable quality.

Looking for affordability in innovation, Béhar and Herman Miller engineers spent months developing a unique suspension material for the backrest of SAYL. The resulting breakthrough molded ergonomic support directly into the back of the chair, which was then stretched into place. It also replaced foam and fabric, typical to other low-cost task chairs, with a single recyclable material. Less material and fewer manufacturing steps, all saved money. A point not lost on Spencer Bailey of Bloomberg Businessweek, who recently described SAYL as “An executive-quality perch that doesn’t require an executive’s bonus to buy.”

One Laptop Per Child is a nonprofit that aims to “provide each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop.” The focus is on children in developing countries, and so far almost two-and-a-half million of them have one.

Yves Béhar and his team at fuseproject designed the laptop, and now they’ve done a tablet version. Just like the laptop, the tablet is simple and functional, with tactile rubber grips, flexible cover, and solar charging battery.

Pro bono design work isn’t new to Béhar and fuseproject. Another of their efforts is “See Better to Learn Better,” a free eyeglasses program in partnership with the Mexican government and Augen Optics.

Good works and good work are both part of Béhar’s vision. On the latter score, 2011 brought recognition for the UP wristband, which uses tiny motion sensors to monitor the wearer’s sleep, diet, and exercise. It made Alice Rawsthorn’s design honors list for 2011. But then, we’re partial to Béhar’s work, especially the award-winning SAYL chair he did with us.

Recently, PBS Arts, in an episode of its Off Book, took a look at product design and what it means to three practitioners. For Yves Béhar of fuseproject, the San Francisco-based design and branding company and designer of our SAYL chair, “what design does, at its best, is to accelerate the adoption of new ideas.” Harvey Moscot, a fourth generation owner of a classic eyewear brand, and Peter Schmitt, an MIT researcher looking to revolutionize the product experience through 3D printing, offer two other perspectives.

It’s certainly the case that the role of design is much in the spotlight lately. It can make the difference, some say. It can change the world, claim others. For us, design is something we get—according to FastCompany. It’s how we solve problems. It’s not just an approach to products, though, it has also become, as George Nelson said in 1948, “a central part of our business.”

Thanks to Rusty Blazenhoff of Laughing Squid for bringing this video to our attention.

Attendees of the recent Cusp Conference in Chicago were encouraged to ask questions and pick the brain of SAYL designer Yves Béhar. Speaking at the conference, Behar talked about problem solving and design, how he approached the design of SAYL, and the layers of its final design solution.

Here are Behar’s answers to a couple of questions:

I’m obsessed with the simplicity and the elegance of the design, but I’m curious to know how the design of the SAYL chair has an effect on its ergonomics, and also on the environment. When conceiving the design of the SAYL chair, and then actualizing it, how did you take into account the question of sustainable design, sustainable material, and use less but get more?

The very foundation of the SAYL chair was to answer the question, “How can I do more with less?” We wanted to deliver ergonomic excellence and do it at a lower cost and carbon footprint. The inspiration from bridges was important as I realized how minimal a tower and tension cable system is relative to the size and function of a bridge.
A lot of experiments took place to see if a similar tower element and a smart material in suspension would deliver back support and allow for upper body movement. The aesthetic of the chair came after we proved to ourselves that we could clearly build a lighter and more efficient design.

You spoke at length at the cusp conference about the source for the forms which comprise the Sayl Chair. You also addressed the economy of materials used to create each part…could you now please elaborate on how you look at the joining together of each of the parts to create the whole?

Too often, task chairs look assembled from a kit of parts, and often they are. There is a dance between SAYL’s functional engineering work and its cosmetic shaping, and there is a relentless desire to have parts run fluidly into each other. For example, I was particularly interested in making the arms look as if they were stretched and growing seamlessly out of their height adjustment posts.
There is also the idea of separate parts drawn as if conceived as one. The SAYL’s frameless back is shaped to both express the tension distribution from the top attachments and visually follow the form and exposed ribbing of the Y-Tower. As a result, the two parts are visually layered as if one.

The Atlantic recently did a piece examining the notebooks of influential people from Milton Glaser to Meriwether Lewis, but with a focus on graphic designers and street artists. The pages, full of sketches ranging from quick doodles to fine art, provide a glimpse into their minds and the creative process.

In 2009, we featured the notebooks of two important Herman Miller designers: Ayse Birsel and Yves Béhar. The videos were part of “A Week in Your Life,” a series commissioned by Moleskine.

What are you creating? We’d love to see your latest doodle.

SAYL received the International Design Award for “Product Design of the Year” at a ceremony Sunday evening. That’s a pretty cool award to get. Getting there took a good designer challenging us just as much as we challenged him.

SAYL designer Yves Behar did just that. He asked, “How do we create a task chair that is attainable? Can we make a comfortable, supportive, healthy, and beautiful chair at a lower price point?” Yves challenged us to develop a technology not seen in low-cost seating.

Herman Miller likes designers that ask tough questions and look for creative answers. We also like to work collaboratively to help achieve their vision. Design and engineering should be at the table from the beginning. We feel a close relationship is a key to innovation.

SAYL’s 3D Intelligent back is a perfect example. Herman Miller worked in tandem with Yves on iteration after iteration, each requiring a new mold, in order to achieve proper supportive flex. It took months of trial and error. Traditional methods would have been easy, and less expensive to develop, but we knew Yves was on to something.

Innovation is not an easy or straight forward road to travel, but we’re okay with that. And an award or two helps, too.

Photos: Live Unframed

Designed by Yves Béhar, the SAYL chair is unique for its Eco-Dematerialised design, which means we used fewer materials in inventive ways to make the chair attainable for more people. Fewer parts and less material ultimately mean less cost and a smaller carbon footprint needed to make SAYL chairs. And, we produce them on three continents to cut the distance between factory and buyer.

TreeHugger points out that it’s a great time for green and we agree.

Congratulations to all the Best of Green winners and thank you to everyone who voted for SAYL!

“You live unframed when you let ideas define what it is you want to do and who it is you want to be,” he says.

So, how do you live unframed?

If you have a Twitter account, show us in a TwitPic or yfrog image what it means to you to live unframed and tweet it to @hermanmiller for your chance to win a SAYL chair.

For more information, check out the rules and guidelines page. The deadline for entries is February 11, 2011.

Those working in our booth were pleased with the reaction to the chairs. Most of all, they heard that SAYL is the right chair at the right time—at the right price.

Here’s a behind-the-scenes look, from inspiration to final product. And why the connection to unframed? As Yves says, it’s the “parallel between SAYL’s literally ‘unframed’ suspension back and my belief that we humans progress by ‘unframed’ expressions of our potential.”

This post is a contribution to Honda’s “Kick Out the Ladder” thought leadership series. Herman Miller was invited to provide a unique perspective on how our corporate philosophy and culture encourages innovation. During the third week of October 2010, four other organizations also provide their own thoughts on the subject. Details and links to what others are saying about “Kick Out the Ladder” can be found at www.facebook.com/honda

This week, Honda launched its “Kick Out the Ladder” series on innovation and graciously invited us to provide Herman Miller’s perspective on the subject. So we’re using this opportunity to debut our new “Design Values” video. It highlights our culture and how we foster innovation in everything from product design to our people practices.

Our mission is to solve problems. And by thinking outside the box to find solutions, we’ve transformed the ways people think about the comfort, style, and function of furniture and their interior environment.

The new SAYL chair family by designer Yves Béhar is our latest example of taking an innovative approach to solve a problem. By rethinking every part of the chair, Béhar and our development team were able to create a better, smarter chair at a remarkable price, setting a new reference point in its class for performance, quality, and appearance.

Focusing also on the idea that people at their best live ‘unframed,’ we worked together to design and build a chair family that gives form to that spirit. In fact, on October 27, we launched liveunframed.com to celebrate the design approach we took with SAYL.

As the Golden Gate Bridge inspired Béhar, we think everyone has the ability to think outside the box, kick out the ladder, and live unframed.

Béhar described this chair as one of his toughest design challenges because a chair “leaves nothing to hide.” And judging by the looks of the crowd, they’re glad he didn’t hide a thing.

Béhar and SAYL will make a few more stops in Los Angeles, New York City, and San Francisco before they head to Germany for Orgatec.

You can follow #SAYL, #liveunframed, and @yvesbehar on Twitter for real-time updates about the chair and its launch events.

Founded in 1950 by Eero Saarinen, Charles and Ray Eames, and Edgar Kaufmann, Jr., the Good Design award criteria are based on function and aesthetics, with a contemporary emphasis for environmental concerns and green design. Categories include: electronics, medical equipment, transportation, furniture, textiles, energy systems, kitchen/appliances, floor covering, household products, and lighting.

Despite the economic downturn, the 2009 Good Design program was “the strongest program ever with the largest-ever amount of corporate participation and the best and most substantial design awarded,” according to Christian K. Narkiewicz-Laine, president of the Chicago Athenaeum and curator of the awards. “This might be the beginning that signals the start that corporations and designers are changing their direction toward more sustainable and cost-effective design and less the use of flash and extravagance and a new understanding that the global market for consumer products is highly competitive and that only the strong will survive.”

Watch this video to hear Yves talk about the design and innovation behind Twist.

Galerinternet.com, a virtual gallery based in Turkey (Ayse’s birthplace), is now featuring Ayse and some of her sketches in a really engaging and fun video.

Internet galleries like this are great because they make art accessible to everyone. Of course, there’s nothing like seeing the real thing, but these galleries help expand and globalize our awareness and give artists places to show and sell.

See more Ayse sketches in A Week in Your Life, a series of videos commissioned by I.D. magazine and Moleskine, the notebook/sketchbook maker. In the videos, the books are shot from overhead while someone simply pages through them. Very cool.

Also featured is a book of sketches by Yves Béhar, who designed Herman Miller’s Twist LED task light, the Leaf personal light, and the Ardea personal light.

Ayse designed Herman Miller’s Resolve system, and she co-designed Teneo storage furniture with Bibi.

A dress made out of salmon skin? Hot shot designer Yves Béhar helping women make hot chocolate? What in the world is going on?

If you’re going to be in New York City anytime before the end of the year, plan a visit to the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum and check out the “Design for a Living World” exhibit, which runs through January 4, 2010.

Developed by the Nature Conservancy,  it features fascinating objects from around the globe, all made from sustainable, natural materials and created by 10 leading designers in the fashion/art/industrial design world, including Yves Béhar, Maya Lin, and Kate Spade.

“Our goal with the exhibition is to connect audiences to nature by exploring the story of place through innovative design,” said Mark Tercek, president and chief executive of The Nature Conservancy. “(The exhibit) challenges us to think about the products we use—where they come from, how they’re made, and what the impacts are on our planet and on local communities.”

With items such as a dress and matching shoes made from salmon skin (typically a waste product of the fishing industry) and a purse made out of wood, it’s also a lot of fun. Here’s a quick sampling of what you’ll see:

Béhar (designer of Herman Miller’s Twist LED task light, Leaf personal light, and Ardea personal light) focused on Costa Rican chocolate for his entry. Working with local women who make and sell a traditional hot drink using cocoa, he developed a device to make scraping the cocoa easier, along with a jute bag to hold it, the cocoa patty, and how-to instructions.

Industrial designer Stephen Burks traveled to Australia to create the “Totem,” a tool made from reclaimed native jamwood that the local Noongar people can use to make and package a line of organic herb-and-sandalwood-based cosmetics they’re developing for export.

Dutch designer Hella Jongerius explored other uses for chicle, a tree residue in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula that’s used for chewing gum products, and came up with more than 20 vessels and plates embellished with the substance.

Abbott Miller, partner in the New York design firm Pentagram, is co-curator of “Design for a Living World,” along with Ellen Lupton, curator of contemporary design at Cooper-Hewitt.  Known for his innovative installations at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Harley-Davidson Museum, Miller says his goal with the exhibit is to “open an important conversation between conservationists and designers about the potential and legacy of natural materials. By choosing sustainable materials, designers contribute to the advancement of a global conservation ethic that can foster consumer awareness.”

It’s all quite intriguing. But if you can’t make it to the “Design for a Living World” exhibit in person, at least take a look at this “sneak preview” on treehugger.com.

By Keasha Palmer

Manufactured in Turkey, all processes—from growing the cotton to producing the finished product—occur within a 100-mile radius. Every part of the supply chain is certified to or exceeds the highest possible environmental and social standards. Even the shipping is earth-friendly: PACT underwear arrives in compostable shipping bags and each pair is packaged in a reusable cloth bag made from scraps.

Through his partnership with Herman Miller, Béhar designed the Leaf personal light, the Ardea personal light, and the new Twist LED task light. Like PACT underwear, Béhar’s lighting solutions were designed with Mother Earth in mind.

By Marcia Davis

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

What started out as George Nelson and Charles Eames and Alexander Girard gave way to Bill Stumpf, Don Chadwick, Tom Newhouse, and Jack Kelley. Now we have a new crew. Compare George, Charles, Alexander, Bill, and the rest to the first names of the group I talked to in June—Ayse, Bibi, Burkhard, Carola, Yves—the difference is obvious. And I would add a few names of people who weren’t present—Eric Chan, Jeff Weber, Claudia Plikat, Jerome Caruso, and Roland Zwick.

The group that I talked to know in their bones who Herman Miller is. They’ve got a vibe about our history and our view of design. I hope that we can maintain these kinds of relationships—we’ve learned from the past how productive they are. A lot of companies are doing what Yves Béhar calls “guest designer” relationships. We don’t follow that approach. The people in this conversation are not guests—they are at the heart of our creative network.

DG: What has the design agenda been at Herman Miller?

Burkhard Schmitz: It’s been like a reorientation. You could say it’s like a post-Aeron, post-systems agenda. I would like to say that the underlying principles of design at Herman Miller persist, although the circumstances are very different now.

DG: Designers are never content.

BurkhardS: Nope—and contemporaries are never content. Either they hope for the future or long for the past.

Carola Zwick: In our ongoing projects, I see Herman Miller using their designers as ears and eyes on reality. And usually the company is willing to take the risk in following their lead.

Ayse Birsel: Some things haven’t changed. Herman Miller still works with outside designers to propel change. But there are also uncertainties—the economic situation isn’t certain. How will we respond to that? We don’t quite know how we are going to grow—or where. There are many things about Herman Miller that we designers are glad won’t change—the drive for innovation and the willingness to take risks—but the direction we are pushing is changing—furniture, technology, Convia.

Bibi Seck: We don’t know that. Maybe it’s impossible to know. I went to a presentation about Convia—the new electrical infrastructure, they called it. Five years ago we would have said this was impossible. But now it’s here—and we have lots of questions about what we can do with it.

Yves Béhar: My own expectation is that Herman Miller would accelerate change—to be at the forefont of the dramatic change that I think is going to happen to work and the work environment. The change, I think, will be especially dramatic in the U.S., because we’ve been very static about the way people work here, in organizational structures—mostly hierarchies, processes based too much on cubicles. Also a great deal of social change.

CZ: It would be almost naïve to think that there is always some master plan in place. For me, the real value comes from stumbling in many directions and finding the right one to bring into reality. I think design at Herman Miller is a dynamic process—related to technology, of course. The risk lies in not allowing different levels of complexity to exist for different products.

AB: I agree with that, but I think there should be some broad principles—environmental perspective, for example.

DG: Are there global realities that are or should be shaping Herman Miller’s design?

BurkhardS: Factors like the environment and demographics are shaping the whole world. They also shape Herman Miller. There are certain constraints that you cannot escape.

YB: I see Asia as another center of activity that we need to look at. I don’t think there’s less to be done in the U.S. or that the challenges here are any less significant. Something like 50 percent of the infrastructure here will have to be changed over the next 20 years or so.

DG: Could we say that people can expect from us products that solve problems across multiple cultures?

BurkhardS: Yes, definitely. But I would say this is very different from designing a “world car,” de-nationalizing and stripping any identity from a product.

YB: A main criteria for me is keeping up with social change—the only uncertainty here is how fast it will happen. We also need to deal with the pace at which technology will affect work surfaces, our walls—every part of work environments.

BurkhardS: That’s problem solving, to me. The most successful products in Herman Miller’s past came from problem solving—and I believe that’s the way it will be in the future. If you asked people whether they wanted an office chair that looked like lawn furniture and had a mesh seat, they would have said no. And if Herman Miller and Bill Stumpf had listened, we wouldn’t have the Aeron chair.

DG: Herman Miller has always had a breadth of approach to aesthetics, just as we have had a broad group of designers. I believe that’s another characteristic we should hang on to.

CZ: Absolutely, yes. The time has gone when we can have a design that transfers to all levels of products. A richness of diversity both asthetically and functionally can adapt much more easily to a diverse range of people and cultures. It’s more about fusion and eclecticism than ever.

AB: I very much agree. Even though we all work independently and in different ways, we are all held together by the company’s core values, its DNA, its history—and of course the people at Herman Miller.

BibiS: That helps the products we design for you say “Herman Miller.” The engineers are another force that makes sure the products we design are right for Herman Miller.

DG: I see many advantages in this group’s diversity. You work in the white space outside the corporation, in a learning space with other industries that we, of necessity, can’t inhabit. It’s hard for companies to go beyond the boundaries of their own problem spaces. Our relationship with you all helps us do that—see change on a global scale and respond to it.

BurkhardS: It’s a networked relationship, one that started years ago with Nelson and Eames. It makes the design function at Herman Miller very resilient.

YB: For me, the challenge for companies like Herman Miller is to integrate many things, especially numerous and incomplete technologies, into their own thinking. The technology companies in Silicon Valley are more aggregators. Companies like Herman Miller need to integrate—applying technology A to field B.

DG: What about innovation in the next few years? Does this relationship we’ve been discussing influence the nature or form of innovation Herman Miller is able to produce? It seems to me we nudge things along as you pursue a design and, when it all works, somewhere along the way an innovation pops. This happens because you have been noodling around on a problem and also because we have what I call a convenant relationship.

BurkhardS: Big hits like Action Office and the Aeron chair don’t come every day.

AB: When Action Office and Bob Propst came along, Herman Miller wasn’t really in the office furniture business. Now the “office” as a set of problems to be solved has also gotten too small to handle the innovation Herman Miller is capable of. We will begin to hit the boundaries of the office and bump into something else—I don’t know what that is, but I think it’s going to happen.

YB: It seems to me that a first mover who can bring simplicity, clarity, cost savings, and energy savings to offices has a bigger advantage today than ever. Lifestyle and workstyle changes are happening faster than ever, and they will change workplaces. I don’t see much response so far to trends toward residential furniture, for example.

DG: Do you think systems furniture will eventually become an appendage of technology in U.S. offices?

BurkhardS: I’m not sure that systems furniture equals the American office, even though systems furniture has matured American offices. People now routinely think hard about planning offices—break areas and work spaces. People actually think about how the whole thing works. That’s not so true in Europe. European offices are basically a collection of stuff acquired in exactly the way Bibi describes, mostly driven by economics. I would never tie the fate of the American office to systems furniture.

YB: I wouldn’t either. It is changing drastically and so is the technology it is currently designed around. Technology will make things easier, simpler, more horizontal—technology will make for less structure, certainly less heavy infrastructure. Portable technology will allow companies to express offices in a much simpler way.

AB: Systems thinking is a strength of Herman Miller’s, but that doesn’t mean you have to end up with a systems product. Creating an ergonomic work environment—

CZ: —Right, in the U.S. there is a strong desire to create healthy and ergonomically correct workplaces—

AB: —and what I’d like to think about is whether creating that kind of healthful environment has to be limited to offices. Everybody needs a decent place to work, but that doesn’t mean everybody needs an office. Offices, themselves, with all their huge overhead costs, may be becoming obsolete. We can certainly take ownership of all the places people work—whether that’s at Starbucks, at an airport, or at home.

YB: The European model is more collaborative, lower walls, and I think this model will drive the market here in the U.S., as opposed to what’s happened since the 1970s with the cubicle driving the market. It’s funny the structures are more open in Europe, but the organizational structures are more open in the U.S.

DG: Should we pursue the problems of working in places outside office buildings?

YB: Herman Miller could certainly apply its knowledge or ergonomics and work environments to these places—communal places, home.

YB: And people are working everywhere. Companies have to create a work environment that’s so much more about projects—young people are motivated by what you give them to do, not by the company. Add this change to changing attitudes about sustainability and we are at a unique place in developing products for work environments. The insistence on sustainable practices is in my mind a certainty, and Herman Miller and every other manufacturer will have to deal with it.

CZ: The office won’t vanish because it’s a social place, where you need to go to make connections. It helps to organize your life and inspire you. But dedicated workspaces in offices will shrink.

DG: Let me change direction slightly. What about the potential for corporations to do good in the world—Ayse you have written about this before—should people expect something along these lines from design at Herman Miller?

AB: Working with Herman Miller, we have learned to use “doing good” as a filter. Not as something sentimental, but in the same way we put environmental thinking or a high level of performance—as Burkhard has said—into our thinking about design. If we put the people truly in need into our thinking, we may accomplish great things. I think about healthcare, where a good design actually helps people survive. When we look at problems in healthcare, we should look at it with an aim toward doing good, not simply just to design a bed or a chair.

DG: DJ De Pree, Herman Miller’s founder, was the first person who learned to, in his words, “abandon” himself to creative partners and ideas. We understand that we don’t know everything you do—we want to follow your aspirations. We think the most important result is a product that actually improves the worlds around our customers. That’s what it’s all about.

CZ: I recently saw the new Embody chair by Jeff Weber and the late Bill Stumpf. Every detail is right—you can really tell that this chair results from a thorough push and pull between Herman Miller and designer. Even if you’re not trained to see a good chair, you sense a credibility in Embody. I think this kind of effort is unique—customers will sense that. And that’s what they should expect from Herman Miller. It’s not about shape, it’s an attitude about design and problem-
solving.

YB: So many companies are now adopting design into their way of doing business, but Herman Miller is unique in that it has done this already for decades. You’ve learned that it’s about creating relationships—independent designers and Herman Miller educate each other. These design relationships are a real competitive advantage.