PROVIDING COMFORT THROUGH INNOVATIVE DESIGN

This is very important for us to understand given our research sessions over the past few weeks.

Corey

http://www.highpointmarket.org/columns/20070928.aspx?IIC=yes

	PROVIDING COMFORT THROUGH INNOVATIVE DESIGN By Glenn Johnson, director, The Design Studio, B/E Aerospace "People were not designed to sit!" These were the words of my maverick ergonomics lecturer, Fred Hoyland. But you don't have to take Fred's word for it—just observe people as you wander around the High Point Market in the coming week. Spot someone sitting on a ledge, on a stool or a chair and you might see them waggle their legs, tilt the chair forward and backward or slump. If you were ever scolded at school for lolling in your chair, or find yourself as an adult unable to sit still in a meeting, it might not come as news to you that shiftiness often has more to do with body design than poor behavior! Sitting is a relatively modern human trait. Before that, we would lie down, squat, stand or run. We humans are designed for hunting, sleeping and the great outdoors. The fact is, in evolutionary terms, our thighs and posterior aren't sufficiently equipped with blood vessels that enable us to sit for long periods of inactivity. Since the vertebrae in the lower spine require more curvature when we sit, the most comfortable position is always the next position. Yet, we all have to sit—you're probably sitting while reading this article. Sitting is ubiquitous; in the office, in our cars and trucks, on the way to school and so on. In the aircraft seating world, which is the focus of my professional life, this is the elephant in our design room. As head of B/E Aerospace's Design Studio, the world's leading designer of commercial aircraft seating, my challenge is a bit different from those of you in the furniture industry, but the goal is the same: to bring comfort to the consumer by meeting his or her needs. As you can imagine, there are few catalysts for conversation as provocative as a fellow airline passenger discovering my profession! And just like you, we have countless reasons in our industry why it is difficult to satisfy the consumer. But, with more than a million behinds in the sky at any given time, we have no choice but to better understand the human body and, through innovative design, do the best we can to provide comfort. Of course, seating comfort is not a challenge exclusive to B/E Aerospace—it is a design and manufacturing conundrum furniture-makers face in their daily work. And at the retail level, consumers make purchasing decisions on comfort, as well as style. If you ask a typical professional ergonomist their opinion about the ideal seating position, the chances are they will say "an infinitely adjustable one." Anyone familiar with the famous Herman Miller Aeron office chair can attest to the level of adjustability the designers Bill Stumpf and Don Chadwick built into its award-winning design. But this level of adjustability is not possible in a typical dining chair or an average coach class airline seat. Designers—in any industry—have to design for an average person's size. But within this constraint, designers should seek innovation and new technologies to provide more personalized comfort. For example, at B/E we will eventually be using real-time MRI in the seated position to peer inside the body and see how to minimize the stress. Using this information, we can improve our designs and, in fact, measure the extent to which stress is reduced. Another innovation, already in use, is a new technology developed by Steelcase, a well-known furniture manufacturer in Michigan. Known as LEAP, the seatback flexes to allow for the variance in different peoples' spines and provide lumbar support tailored to the individual. B/E Aerospace has incorporated LEAP into one of our most recent seat designs, the ICON main cabin seat for Cathay Pacific airlines, based in Hong Kong. Of course, design is not just about how to achieve the best position. We have to do it in an affordable, elegant and commercially beneficial way. As we all know, many beautiful objects are often quite useless, but many highly useful objects are not aesthetically pleasing. Would anyone suggest a shopping cart is beautiful, for example? A new design by the B/E team in Winston-Salem, North Carolina shows, I think, how the practical, the aesthetic and the emotional needs of airline passengers can be met. Beginning in 2003, business class passengers flying from Tokyo to London on Japan Airlines enjoyed new, ergonomic seats that reclined into private beds. The seats measure up to 23 ½ inches wide, are equipped with a pneumatic lumbar support system, a 57-inch minimum seat pitch, a privacy panel and a LED reading light. The design is stunning, passengers can stretch out in their personal space, and it takes up less real estate than first-class seating. In my business, we are also investigating the many psychological aspects of comfort—an area where we may stand to learn from a lot from you. For example, I have always been intrigued by the fact that sufficient visual and visceral interest—such as a live performance, a captivating film, great company or a fantastic meal—relegates sub-par seating to the bottom of the comfort agenda. In the home furnishings business, your work is all about combining the practical and the aesthetic, the functional and the emotional. So, as you travel to and work the High Point Market—driving in your rental car, taking coffee at the airport lounge, or flying away in a jetliner—please consider that someone is trying very hard to give you the very best comfort possible. And, though your feet and legs may ache from long hours walking and standing at Market, take comfort in knowing that, after all, your human form is not designed to sit!
	About Glenn Johnson: Glenn Johnson, director of the Design Studio at B/E Aerospace, hails from Yorkshire in the North of England. He studied design and computing at the Royal College of Art in London. Starting his career with British Aerospace Military Aircraft, he moved to Airbus Industrie commercial aircraft in France in 1990 before moving to North Carolina in 1998 to head B/E Aerospace's Design Studio. The Design Studio has received several international design awards and patents for innovation. Glenn is married with three children, two dogs, two cats and three fish and is still trying to learn bluegrass and jazz guitar. Like many designers from industries beyond home furnishings who seek to stay abreast of the latest trends and innovations in design, he'll be walking the High Point Market next week.