Like floating on a cloud: se:air offers a new sitting experience

It may be that a lot has shifted, changed or perhaps even gone bye-bye in the world of work, especially in the last two years. But many things have remained the same, such as the need to know that one of the most important partners in everyday office life is always at your side: The office chair – and in its best form. Because: ergonomic sitting has become the key to the right balance of body and mind. It is the interface between constructive support and balancing well-being and thus also between job and leisure time, which are increasingly merging in modern working models.

German office chair manufacturer Sedus, founded in 1871 as a chair factory by Albert Stoll, has long been on the trail of ergonomically optimised chairs. The fact that sitting has always been at the centre of the company's activities is illustrated, too, by its name evolution: under Christof Stoll, the third generation of the founding family, it was changed to Sedus, derived from the Latin word sedere. Around 150 years of hard work and research went into reconciling formal seating with healthy ergonomics. In the beginning, it was chairs made of bent beech wood and later the first swivel chair with rotating column suspension, but for Christof Stoll it was already clear in the 1970s that sitting per se is not static and that a chair needs more dynamism than simply turning.

Stoll, with his enthusiasm for cybernetics, humanism and anthropology, developed the first swivel chairs for dynamic sitting and thus created the basis for optimal support of physiological movement sequences while sitting. Equipped with the Anatomic seat and Permanent Contact backrest, it was possible for the first time to change the sitting position without straining the spine. This resulted in the synchronous mechanism, which adjusts the inclination between the backrest and the seat surface to the body with high-tech precision. That this would be a visionary bull's-eye with regard to the back complaints of the 21st century was perhaps not so evident at the time. But one thing was certain: all at once, the office chair had lost its rigidity. 

The fruit of this wise foresight is reflected once again in Sedus’s latest development, on view at ORGATEC 2022: The filigree se:air model not only incorporates latest technology, but also boosts an uncomplicated lightness for the workplaces of today. ‘With se:air, we are introducing the first office chair completely covered with membrane to the market,’ explains Ernst Holzapfel, Head of Marketing at Sedus Stoll AG. ‘se:air is an office chair for real design lovers. The organic design language appears light and dynamic. At the same time, the chair impresses with its intelligent design and tailor-made membrane, which gives the optimum support and at the same time clings to the user's body like a glove.’

True to the motto ‘sit down and get going’, the sitter can feel free of all constraints. It’s a new sitting experience that goes back to the ingenious details of se:air. Working in the background, they ensure ergonomic, breathable comfort with plenty of freedom of movement: a patented Kinetic-Swing mechanism with automatic weight recognition, high-quality membranes with different degrees of hardness and invisible seams, height-adjustable multifunctional armrests including a sliding pad with floating effect without snapping in place and an optional lumbar support for the lower back.

Another of Christof Stoll's guiding principles remains one of the company's most important core values to this day: ‘Ecology and economy are not opposites, but indispensable parts of the whole.’ se:air, whose frame material consists of up to 50% recycled material and whose long-lasting membranes knitted to fit are Made in Germany, is also a product entirely in keeping with Sedus' sustainable design approach. Which is not least a question of style: In order to be able to integrate se:air harmoniously into a wide variety of settings and combine it with different furnishing styles, Sedus has created four colour worlds, consisting of SmartBalance, UrbanLiving, SoftBeing and MultiCreation – monochrome concepts for the frame, membrane, armrests and castors, which once again highlight se:air’s timeless design language and underline the shape of a truly contemporary office chair.

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