Heavy Petal: Steelcase SILQ

Sometimes, all it takes for a good idea to become reality is time. And creativity paired with persistence, of course! Yes, true – the more advanced a concept is, the longer it might take before it takes off. Any designer daring to leave the beaten path has experienced setbacks along the way. James Ludwig, Steelcase´s Vice President Global Design & Product Engineering is no exception here.

Back in 2008, Ludwig sketched a decidedly simple office chair on a little piece of paper. The seating element he envisioned had a plant-like appearance and the silhouette of a flower bud. Far out. His idea: the material properties of the chair itself replace the many mechanisms used to adjust it. But no existing material seemed to fit the task. Ludwig: ”I asked my engineers: can we build this? And they said: not yet”. So that little sketch was filed away in some drawer and Ludwig turned his attention to other projects. Yet the desire to create something simple, something less machine-like, did not leave him.

In the past two decades, many office chairs have turned into complicated, heavy, almost science-fiction-like sculptures. Machines to sit in, made to be adjusted to the one single person using it, day-in and day-out. But the way we work in office-environments is changing – especially in open, lofty office spaces with freelancers coming in to help out and new, nomadic forms of team-work taking over. Today, one might work in many different constellations, at various desks, in conference situations, in spontaneous groups of varying sizes. So it is becoming more and more important to reach the goal of ”plug & play,” when it comes to office design.

This exactly is what Steelcase is aiming at with its chair SILQ. Only its height is adjustable, the backrest reacts directly to the person sitting in it, in a way that needs no further adjustments. But in order to reach this kind of simplicity, quite some detours had to be taken in an 18-months-long design process.

The moment that re-started the project that was to become SILQ, was a special one indeed: At a TED conference Ludwig attended, he followed the presentation of a Paralympics athlete who praised the advantages of his carbon fibre prosthesis. Carbon fibre! That sparked something in Ludwig. Together with his team of designers, the idea of a strong, yet flexible material for a simple office chair began to take shape. Ludwig: ”We first created a premium version of SILQ in carbon fibre. But we knew we needed to innovate further to reach every audience. Our team continued prototyping and invented a new material and manufacturing process resulting in a high-performance polymer that behaves like carbon fibre.”

Once the right material was created, Ludwig and his team developed a design for SILQ that signals the concept of simplicity in every detail of the chair: from the bi-colour backside to the casters with large holes in them which give them a unique, iconic look. Remember Ludwig´s original idea of flower buds? It can still be traced in the dynamic, organic over-all appearance of the chair. ”It´s really a responsive organism,” Ludwig adds.

It´s various versions, with or without armrests, with glides or casters, as a chair or stool, provide a great number of options to customize SILQ according to personal preferences and the existing interior design of any office. And of course, there are many colours and designs for the textile covers to choose from. But at the end of the day, what you get will be a simple office chair that doesn´t need to be adjusted, but rather adjusts itself.

© Architonic