Herman Miller’s Embody Chair: Fully Considered Furniture

How does having a comfortable chair affect a person’s work-life? How much impact does it have?

We set out to develop the most humanistic chair we could given the constraints we were dealt, such as time, money, gravity and the material world. We describe comfort as the absence of awareness.. We attempted to design a chair that is an integral tool supportive of your work process – but is an absent participant. [This] allows you as a worker to function (physically and mentally) at an optimal level. Like an athlete with comfortable/high performing footwear: that footwear cannot impair the process of a performance. The chair is an equally critical factor; it is a difference maker.

The back of the Embody chair is really where it shows off its character. What’s the inspiration behind it?

The chair back: It is an attempt to produce a support element that is the analog of the human spine. Flexible, lively, resilient, stable, intelligent. Spinal health is the determinate factor for over all health.

The Embody chair is designed to be 95 percent recyclable, and has 42 percent recycled content in it. Were there any components that had to be specially considered or designed in a new way to meet these targets?

The HMI development process is an inclusive one. HMI has a Design For the Environment team of people that constantly consults with the project development team to insure the environmental protocol is achieved from the beginning.

How easy is it for someone to disassemble the chair for recycling? Was this considered in the design process?

The chair is very easy to assemble and disassemble, fasteners are visually available. But most importantly the chair has been designed to last, to provide service for a minimum of 12 years and in service for decades. Length of usable life coupled with materiality determine the true global footprint of an object.

Thanks, Jeff!

Herman Miller Embody