Cypress, California, USA
German designer Martin Ballendat attributes his vision of a minimal chair built around a single defining line to his German design philosophy of reducing to the essential.
To Ballendat, reduction makes sense economically and environmentally. It also makes sense for A&D and end users. Employees who want quick comfort and ease of use prefer “essential” over “robust.” At a time when people fight sensory overload, decision fatigue and burnout, a chair that sits ready — in the way Martin envisioned Mavic — is an asset to any working space. Free of complicated bells and whistles, anyone can get right to work without fussing with adjustments. Reducing to what’s essential also unlocks strong benefits for A&D. A minimal design is easy to integrate into client spaces. A light-scale chair maintains levity. And in conference rooms, meeting spaces and seminar halls, levity helps power performance.
The result is the Mavic Chair, which recently won a Good Design Award in 2020 by The Chicago Athenaeum.
One primary engineering challenge was the flexibility of the Mavic Chair’s back. The arms on Mavic would be sharp rather than round, and the Z-line makes a longer curve than the line of a typical task chair. The uniqueness of both features brought inherent difficulty to achieving the desired level of spring or bounce when sitting. The arms had to recline as the user reclined, and the curve had to stretch the chair’s tension mesh back just so to provide optimal lumbar support.
Employees often shift between collaborative and solo tasks multiple times a day. Plus, today’s workers are increasingly choosing contract, freelance, remote and hybrid roles. They’re on the go, hopping in and out of the office at unpredictable rhythms. Martin realized that his new design should offer less, not more. It should be light scale with a bullseye focus on only the most essential functions and not compromise on comfort.
Designers: Martin Ballendat
Manufacturer: SitOnIt Seating | IDEON
