Promotion: ergonomic furniture brand Humanscale has updated some of its classic task and conference chair designs for the Meeting Collection, which focuses on flexible seating to suit a range of uses and users.
The US brand brought together the designs in response to the pandemic-era reshaping of office life, noting that the most successful organisations were those implementing a hybrid work model and that "commute-worthy design" could play a part in bringing people back to the office.
The chairs in the Meeting Collection are those that support this style of working. They include upright sitting positions promoting collaboration, complementary aesthetics across designs so they can be moved from space to space, and automatic personalisation that means they adapt to each new sitter and the contours of their body.
Humanscale prides itself on having focused on user wellbeing throughout its 40-year history, resulting in a catalogue of timeless yet forward-looking designs that make a perfect fit for the diverse requirements of the contemporary office.
"We've always been committed to designing with the health and comfort of consumers in mind," said Humanscale founder and CEO, Bob King. "Our mission to promote wellness and connectivity has never been so clear and multifaceted and assumes an even greater importance in this post-pandemic world."
To give the Meeting Collection a fresh touch, Humanscale teamed up with Danish textile brand Kvadrat to offer the seating in a new range of graded-in fabrics with compelling textures and colours.
For instance, there is the option of Kvadrat's Vanir felted woollen textile, which was developed with fashion designer Raf Simons and features a soft speckling of complementary colours, or Reflect, a natural-looking recycled polyester created with designer Patricia Urquiola.
The Meeting Collection chairs include Todd Bracher's recent Path design, which Humanscale calls "the most sustainable task chair ever made", with each one incorporating nearly 10 kilograms of recycled materials.
Bracher designed the chair to have a quiet presence. With all the chairs in the Meeting Collection, it incorporates one of Humanscale's signature seating technologies, allowing it to automatically adjust to the user's weight and position without them having to use manual controls.
Bracher's Trea Lite, a compact task chair with a unique clamshell shape, is also in the collection, along with Summa, Humanscale's more executive-style chair that Humanscale describes as designed for dynamic collaboration and finished with refined detailing.
Finally, there are two classic Niels Diffrient designs: the "iconic" Freedom chair and the Smart conference chair. The Freedom chair was the first ever self-adjusting chair designed without knobs and levers, and offers support for the full spine without the need to adjust knobs and levers, while the Smart conference chair offers tailored lumbar support.
Humanscale says the products of the Meeting Collection have been designed with "seamless functionality" in mind so that the user experience is effortless, and that they are suited to the office, home or "third places" such as co-working hubs.
Founded in 1983, Humanscale aims to leverage new technology in its functional and minimal workplace designs, which are designed to support the user in every posture.
The company also places sustainability at the forefront of its design philosophy, using recyclable materials, streamlining designs to minimal parts, and making efforts to minimise the impacts of its supply chain, manufacturing facilities and showrooms.
To find out more about Humanscale and its Meeting Collection, visit the brand's website.
Partnership content
This article was written by Dezeen for Humanscale as part of a partnership. Find out more about Dezeen partnership content here.