Word: diffrient
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Diffrient's furniture system consists of a number of components that can be put together to suit the individual tasks, comfort and predilections of every worker in today's automated office. Surfaces can be lifted or lowered, tilted or joined every which way; adjustable video supports, telephone holders, In and Out baskets, bookshelves, copyholders and other accessories can be readily attached. Says Diffrient: "We set out to design an office furniture system that fits everyone who uses it-from the shortest woman to the tallest man-like their clothes or shoes...
...lounge chair, which Diffrient named for Jefferson, has none of the sleek elegance of the chaise longues designed by Mies van der Rohe or Le Corbusier, nor the coziness of the Eames lounge chair. But then, none of them is adjustable and completely comfortable. In designing his Jefferson chair, Diffrient set aside all questions of form and tried to think like an engineer. After much trial and error, he arrived at a design that suspends the chair on a central axis that pivots much as the body does at the waist and hips. The pivoting motion is controlled...
...freestanding column. Another column supports a television set or computer monitor, as well as a cantilevered, tilting table that can hold a computer keyboard or serve as a writing surface. The columns can be placed anywhere. The computer disc drive goes in an upright console next to the chair. Diffrient maintains that "the energy you save by reducing the strain of holding yourself up and worrying about whether your back aches or your arms hurt is directly converted to the work at hand...
...lean, silver-haired Mississippian, Diffrient, 55, has always disdained the merely stylish, devoting most of his professional life to accommodating what he calls the "human factor" in the tools and furnishings of our high-tech civilization. He started as a painter, but switched to industrial design while studying at the famed Cranbrook Academy of Art, near Detroit. During that time he apprenticed with Architect-Designer Eero Saarinen, making drawings and models for office chairs. He eventually won acclaim for his own chairs but is just as proud of the tractors, lift trucks and airplane interiors he helped create during...
...Diffrient's chair prompts visionary speculations about the office of the future. Perhaps the executive desk will become obsolete except as a status symbol to sit behind, not to write on. And what of the conference room of tomorrow? How about a congenial grouping of Jefferson lounge chairs, their occupants all watching the displays presented on their individual monitors? -By Wolf Von Eckardt