Today’s changing business landscape has led to increased focus on designs that facilitate collaboration in the workplace.

In response to this shift in offices across the globe, Steelcase introduced i2i and Cobi at NeoCon in 2008. Since then, the chairs have gone on to bag a number of prestigious awards.

i2i

i2i, which was most recently honoured at the 2010 iF awards, is designed to let people orient themselves to their fellow collaborators without taking away their focus or sacrificing comfort. i2i is free of adjustments, yet has a flexing back and a mechanism that invite both movement and support when seated in an upright or reclined position.

The chair supports a variety of postures through its dual swivel mechanism: users can choose to swivel both the back and seat at the same time, or only the back (to stay oriented to others while adjusting the posture to reduce fatigue) or seat (to keep the posture while changing orientation).

Cobi

Cobi, which received a Silver award at NeoCon 2008 and a red dot award: product design in 2009, is a table-based collaborative chair that helps people move freely and minimise fatigue.

The design dynamically supports a wide range of postures with only one manual adjustment for seat height. An intuitive, weight-activated mechanism provides support by automatically responding to the user’s movement. Its elastomeric top edge gives way and provides comfort, as opposed to resistance, when users drape an arm over the back of the chair. Additionally, the seat pan flexes on three sides, allowing users to sit in multiple directions in comfort.

Both i2i and Cobi are a continuation of Steelcase’s Alive Seating portfolio and are based on its 4 key principles: movement, orientation, fit and sustainability.

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