The Herman Miller Aeron Chair
Probably the most well known Herman Miller furniture is the Aeron Chair 
So how did it come about? Well, it was inspired by a desire to integrate form and function. Miller commissioned Don Chadwick and Bill Stumpf to come up with a completely new chair. Their remit was to start with no assumptions of how an office chair may look or from what materials it may be constructed from. Design cannot occur within a total vaccum, however, and to this end the designers adhered to 4 main design principles.
Firstly, an aeron chair had to be ergonomically perfect. The reality of office work is that a person will be sitting for upto 80% of their day. Consequently, an aeron chair had to become almost an extension of the person sitting in it. It had to play a key role in enhancing and creating a healthy working environment for the person.
The second design principle was function. The chair had to be easily adjustable and be almost organically adaptable to the position of the person for the task in hand. I am a pathologist and sit looking down a microscope for long periods of time. I can give my personal affirmation that the designers succeeded in this respect!
Thirdly was the principle of customisation. No longer would one size or one approach fit all. There is an astounding array of customisation in not just the aeron chair, but the embody and also in the eames range too.
Finally was the principle of environmental sustainability. Aeron chairs (actually all herman furniture) is designed to be sparing of natural resources, durable and repairable – none of the built in obsolescence of so many other furniture and chairs.
So, with these principles in mind the designers came up with the Herman Miller Aeron chair, in 1994. It soon became synonymous with the Dot.com era (all those computer guys sitting around!) and has even found a (deserved) place in New York’s Museum of Modern Art.
