As work evolves, people are more agile, shifting from individual to collaborative work in an instant. With all that motion, they need support that moves with them. In response, Herman Miller, Inc., the global leader in high-performance seating, announces its latest advancement, the Mirra 2 work chair.
Designed by Studio 7.5 of Berlin, Germany—the quartet of Burkhard Schmitz, Carola Zwick, Claudia Plikat, and Roland Zwick—it is built on the same principles as their best-selling original, but is completely redesigned from the casters up. The result is a leaner, lighter, more responsive chair moves as one with the sitter and dynamically supports even a person’s slightest movements, so important as people work more agilely than ever. In commenting on the design, the Studio 7.5 team, who prefers to speak with one voice, noted that the chair is “a reincarnation of Mirra. It feels reassuringly familiar because we maintained its soul and essential DNA, but we advanced the materialization and manifestation of this idea in virtually every aspect.”
Mirra 2 is being previewed during the Salone Del Mobile in Milan, Italy, 9-14 April at Herman Miller’s National Design Centre showroom, 70 Corso Garibaldi. The chair will be available for purchase worldwide Summer 2013.
Together in Motion Mirra 2 moves as people do, at one with their body. By purposefully rethinking every part of a successful design, Mirra 2 provides instant feedback for everything the sitter does, offering an intimate connection where the person and the chair move as one.
“We always knew that for an ergonomic work chair the same rules apply as for a pair of running shoes,” says Studio 7.5. “Both need to balance adaptability and support in order to be health positive. At the same time the gear needs to provide just the right amount of firmness and support in order to help the person’s body adopt healthy postures.” Mirra 2 also advances on its predecessor’s intuitive and easy-to-adjust controls, helping people make the right adjustment decisions on the fly without reading a manual. The sitter can make all adjustments while seated, allowing instant feedback to fine-tune the fit to the individual.
Support in Motion The Mirra 2 Butterfly Back™, with its exceptional responsiveness and intuitive feel, results from the invention of a new method for merging a fabric layer with polymer veins to create an intelligent support structure. The hybrid structure, shaped for dynamic support, keeps the body in healthy alignment. Combined with a new loop spine, enhanced passive PostureFit™ and independently adjustable lumbar support, Mirra 2’s back design is extraordinarily responsive to the body’s slightest movements needs for support.
“The Butterfly Back provides another degree of flexibility, or more resolution, as we could call it,” says Studio 7.5. “This provides a better fit for the back. We think of this as similar to the sensitivity and resolution achieved in high-fidelity sound. The result of these advances is a new level of contouring and support for micro motion.”
The Butterfly Back shell also maximizes breathability using a reversed ratio of openings to support structure, and the same fabric used in technical clothing to avoid heat and moisture build-up. In addition, a redesigned seat frame allows for the removal of foam under the front of the seat, further increasing the seat’s breathability and comfort. And a reinvented Harmonic™ tilt provides a smooth and balanced feel as people move from one posture to another, whatever their size and stature.
Beauty in Motion The lean design of Mirra 2 brings a sophisticated profile and visual lightness to any space. Added selections for textile and back colors—and the opportunity to combine them creatively—along with new options for base finishes increase the range of choices.
Responsibility in Motion The original Mirra design broke new ground, becoming the world’s first highly engineered, multi-component product designed from the ground up using Cradle-to-Cradle principles. That process helped Herman Miller and Studio 7.5 maximize the use of recycled content, ensure easy disassembly for ready recyclability, and made sure the materials used were the safest available.
Mirra 2 builds on that legacy and brings sustainable design another step forward by using fewer materials more intelligently. The result is a chair that is more responsive to the person, and more responsible to the earth. Mirra 2 is 25 percent lighter than the original yet can accommodate a person weighting up to 350 lb/150 kg.
“We think every design should be sustainable, and one way is to make sure a design lasts,” said Studio 7.5. “By rethinking every component of the chair we were able to improve its performance and reduce its carbon footprint by 25 percent. We took something good and made it even better.”
About Studio 7.5 There is nothing commonplace about this Berlin design group, that functions without bosses and titles and that eats a home-cooked lunch together in the studio every work day. The four designers that make up this group—Claudia Plikat, Roland Zwick, Carola Zwick, and Burkhard Schmitz—describe themselves as "partially anthropologists,” relying on the precise observation of the man-made environment. The four designers find designing work chairs to be particularly rewarding—in part because of their experience working with us on their award-winning Mirra and Setu chairs, and now the advanced Mirra 2.
About Herman Miller, Inc. Herman Miller works for a better world around you—with inspiring designs, inventive technologies and strategic services that help people do great things and organizations to perform at their best, improving the human experience wherever people work, heal, learn, and live. Its award-winning products and services generated more than $1.7 billion in revenue in fiscal 2012. Innovative business practices and a commitment to social responsibility have also helped establish Herman Miller as a recognized global company. A past recipient of the Smithsonian Institution's Cooper-Hewitt "National Design Award,” in 2012, Herman Miller again received the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s top rating in its annual Corporate Equality Index and was named among the 50 Best U.S. Manufacturers by Industry Week. Herman Miller is included in the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index and trades on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol MLHR.
