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Designer Marcus Koepke explains the path that led to Allsteel's new chair.
By Jonathan Ringen
The Metropolis Observed
July 2002
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Allsteel's new #19 chair (left) was designed by Marcus Koepke (right).
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Given the iconic nature of office chairs (think of how the Aeron neatly
embodies the workplace of the late 1990s), it's not surprising that Allsteel
is using its new #19 chair to symbolize the company's transformation from
dowdy manufacturer of sturdy file cabinets to hip producer of high-tech
office furniture. What is somewhat surprising is the designer chosen
to helm the two-year project. Marcus Koepke, an Indianapolis-based industrial
designer, doesn't have the name recognition of Bill Stumpf or Don Chadwick.
What he does have is an impressive track record as the creator of highly
successful affordable office chairs like the top-selling Mobius line
for Allsteel's new corporate parent, HON Industries. For the high-end #19,
Koepke worked with a team that included mechanical engineers, ergonomics
experts, and a shop capable of rapidly producing prototypes. Metropolis
assistant editor Jonathan Ringen spoke to Koepke recently about the experience.
Tell us a little about the #19 design process.
It was a mix between brainstorming and prototyping. You brainstorm about
a certain aspect of the chair, and you try to find out if anything--either
in nature, or from previous experience, or anywhere, really--has solved
that problem. We looked at the way different spiders construct their webs,
at the points they pick to anchor their structures. And that provides an
analogy to the way the back of the chair works, because it's a free web
without a structural frame, and it's suspended from the two ball pivots
on the top. Then you select maybe three different ideas to explore three-dimensionally
and quickly build prototypes. All of this happens within a week; and by
the end of the week you're sitting there with 10 or 15 ideas that are testable,
that you can look at and decide whether or not they are successful.
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After the engineering was completed and tested on raw prototypes like
those to the right, Koepke picked up a pencil and went to work on the
styling (left).
Photo by Above right, courtesy Allsteel; all other images courtesy Marcus Koepke
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How many iterations of the chair were there?
More than 15. In the beginning all the models were scabbed out of spare
parts of other chairs and crude chunks of steel. They looked more like contraptions
than chairs; you'd wonder if it was safe to sit in them. There was no consideration
given to appearance at that point, just to functionality and answering the
problems of use. It wasn't until we started to feel like a mock-up was working
that I started thinking about appearance.
How much of the chair's aesthetics came out of the engineering process?
The engineering side determined, say, where the pivots needed to be and
what the lengths needed to be--essentially a grid that described the chair
as a solely mechanical device. I took all of the data points that make that
chair what it is mechanically back to Indianapolis, and worked for three
weeks or a month trying to figure out how to get it to work and also
look beautiful.
Is it true that there is a plan to send the chair through an MRI with someone sitting in it?
Because the chair is aluminum it can run through an MRI without any problems.
We hope to learn how the spine moves in the chair, how it's supported, and
if there's anything we can improve. There are two kinds of innovation: academic
innovation and industrial innovation. Academic innovation happens through
grants; industrial innovation happens through sale of product. So at some
point you have to stop refining and actually produce the thing. Hopefully
you've answered enough of the problems for the user that enough chairs are
purchased to support the continuation of learning. We may or may not be
able to incorporate the input we get from the MRI in this chair, but the
next chair certainly will.
»
More Koepke: www.metropolismag.com/html/designmart/profile_marcuskoepke.html
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