While the landscape of the modern workplace becomes increasingly more fluid, the task chair remains its one constant. And for good reason. As our work habits become more flexible, everybody still sits – often for hours. So, the question isn’t whether we sit, but how we can sit our best.
For Alex Bain, Graduate Interior Designer at Architectus, the answer lies in feeling like the very act of sitting disappears into the work it facilitates – a high bar in an industry that often demands long hours at a desk. “Sitting well means that I feel supported and at the end of the day, I’m not sore or achy,” he explains. “And the right chair makes it feel like I haven’t been sitting at all.”
Swapping seats and ideas of comfort
Alex brings a fresh perspective on what it means to sit well, shaped by the contrast between educational environments and the realities of studio life. He smiles when he recalls the hard plastic university chairs. “If you sit in those for six hours a day, you are definitely not sitting well at all,” he says.
So, when Alex joined Architectus and first sat in the ir – a design icon added to the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York soon after its 1994 launch – it was certainly an upgrade from the unforgiving uni seating. But it wasn’t just that – it felt like nothing else he had experienced before. “It was comfortable, ergonomic and weightless, so I could just sit down and get to work,” Alex explains, remembering instant appeal and built-in lumbar support. “It felt like it was made for me.”
The float, the tilt, the flow
These days, Alex particularly appreciates the chair’s natural, balanced movement and the floating sensation made possible by Pellicle suspension. “I’m up in front of the computer staring at details for hours, but then I can lean back and get the broader picture, while still feeling like I’m floating,” he enthuses.
This ability to shift seamlessly between intense focus and relaxing back, without paying attention to how he’s sitting, shapes the rhythm of his work. “When I’m not conscious of how I’m sitting, my flow isn’t interrupted,” he explains. “With Aeron, it’s just not something you have to think about.”
That includes leaning back – the ultimate act of trust in the chair’s capacity to make you feel supported, yet unrestricted. “With some chairs, when you recline, you feel like you’re about to tip over,” Alex explains. “In the Aeron, you’re completely supported.” And he means that both physically and emotionally.
A mobile anchor…
Alex likens his to an anchor amidst the constant shifts between intense desk work and collaboration. “When I have a deadline, I’ll be sitting down at my desk for long periods of time, but throughout the day I’ll be up, playing with materials and samples,” he explains. “And because I’m a grad, I spend a lot of time at other people’s desks learning from them.”
In that dynamic routine, his task chair has become a much-needed, reliable constant that’s always there for him. “My chair at my desk is my anchor point,” Alex says, describing the comfort of knowing he can just fall into the chair with ease and feel like nothing’s changed. “It’s almost like an emotional support chair,” he adds humorously.
… and an emotional support chair
But how can this kind of attachment flourish in a modern hybrid practice designed for hot desking? We know individuals gravitate towards the same location because “having a consistent desk helps with focus,” Alex explains. But what about the chairs? Same, it turns out. And Alex isn’t the only one who always has his with him.
“Some of my colleagues, who’ve had their chairs for years, will wheel them along if they don’t get their usual desk,” he says, “and they’ll just swap a different chair in.” This attachment, Alex notes, comes from the fact that “they’ve found how that chair works for them and they don’t have to work to fit the chair.” For instance, while others can’t imagine working without armrests, Alex prefers a streamlined configuration that allows him to sit diagonally or shift around. “And it never feels like the chair is working against me,” he adds.
Aeron’s ergonomic irresistibility
This affinity, underscoring why the remains the gold standard in performance seating decades after launch, isn’t incidental – it’s a direct product of ’s robust research and high-quality, meticulously crafted design, refined to the point of ergonomic irresistibility.
Alex, who first learned about the iconic design powerhouse through Eames during his studies, has always appreciated impact on the world of design. And if the Eames chairs taught him to recognise design history, the embodies its potential to evolve and meet the changing demands of the contemporary workplace. As Alex notes, while the human body hasn’t changed in the last 30 years, our workspaces have. “Now, it’s essential for the chair to provide comfort and ergonomic support,” he says, “and Herman Miller has really mastered that harmony.”
Evolution grounded in longevity
Now, it’s one thing to hold on to your chair for as long as you can and another for the chair, arguably one of the most‑used objects in any workplace, to endure that kind of demand.
What makes relevance even more compelling is that its reliable performance is rooted in resilient longevity – many of the have been in the Architectus office for well over a decade and they’re still just as much a part of people’s routines as when they first arrived. But this permanence isn’t just about comfort.
“At Architectus, we have a lot of initiatives ensuring that we use sustainable materials, maintain transparency in our specification, and keep our impact on the environment as low as possible,” Alex explains. He adds that there is an onus on designers not only to protect the environment, but also to educate their clients – by example, in this case – on how good design can do that. Choosing a task chair, then, isn’t just picking a seat – it’s a commitment to the entire lifecycle of a space.
With components made of ocean-bound plastic and almost 60% recycled materials, the – almost entirely recyclable at the end of its life – is a powerful statement on sustainable fit-outs. But it’s the chair’s refusal to be replaced that still remains its most compelling sustainability feature. “We’ve had ours for 12 years,” Alex explains. “When we specify a chair like the for our clients, we know we’re choosing something that’s going to endure and not end up in landfill anytime soon.”
This reliable permanence inevitably returns to core purpose: to help people sit their best all through the day. Whether it enables a designer to disappear into a task with ease or acts as an unrestrictive anchor between bouts of collaboration, the world’s most famous task chair embodies the core of performance seating approach: it transcends ergonomics as a purely technical concept to deliver seating comfort that feels intuitive to everybody – and every body.
What Alex’s perspective crystallises is that by enabling natural movement, adaptable support and resilient longevity, proves that sitting your best isn’t just about biomechanics. It’s about a fundamental sense of emotional security – and that might just feel like you’re not even sitting at all.
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