Highlights

• Plex is a new range of modular lounge furniture designed by London-based Industrial Facility for Herman Miller
• Sam Hecht and Kim Colin have designed a lounge system for Herman Miller that truly supports work

Work today is more varied than ever before, and a core tenet of Herman Miller’s Living Office placemaking framework is that workplaces should support different ways of working with a purposeful variety of settings. With the introduction of Plex Lounge Furniture, a modular system that uses just a few parts to form many seating combinations, Herman Miller brings comfort and support to multiple settings across the modern workplace. As conceived by Sam Hecht and Kim Colin of London-based Industrial Facility, the components of Plex are designed to allow people to assume the postures that best support all of their activities—from connecting with colleagues to catching up on emails.

With a rectangular seat as the foundation, the Plex offering is made up of just six elements that can be combined to create everything from armchairs and sofas to ottomans and benches. Movable tables, in fixed- or adjustable-height, nest closely to Plex seats to make working at a laptop convenient. Power ports, available in standard outlets or in combination with USB, provide easy access for charging technology tools. Each element can be used alone or combined in myriad ways to create settings ranging from a haven for quiet contemplation or a small social grouping, to a team presentation space or buzzing plaza filled with functional seating. Plex is well suited for organizations that want to give people more options for working across the entire office landscape, and is equally effective in educational surroundings like student unions, libraries, and workshops.

Plex is not the first thoughtful and versatile product that Sam Hecht and Kim Colin have designed for Herman Miller. Their Formwork desktop storage and Locale system are also aesthetically refined and endlessly configurable, enabling users to adapt the area around them to support the work they are doing. When approached to design a new lounge seating solution that could provide individual comfort while giving interior planners a versatile, modular solution for commercial spaces, Hecht and Colin responded with Plex. The universal base and compact footprint simplify space planning and allow for greater density in a floorplate. Across the workplace landscape, the system lets people move fluidly between individual and group activities, and supports any number of seated postures, from relaxed lounge/reading to upright social engagement or laptop use, enabling both the social connection and high-performance focus that are key to success.

Hecht and Colin accessed Herman Miller’s extensive knowledge of human comfort in the design of Plex. Every Plex seating unit includes ergonomic details like suspension seat technology and lumbar support to make sitting for longer stretches comfortable. Plex is sized to accommodate people of all statures and shapes, and its sculpted back encourages active sitting by allowing people to vary their postures. In its club chair form, Plex offers a height-adjustable headrest that creates a visual boundary for supporting focused, individual work.

The versatility of Plex includes a choice of legs, casters, and swivel bases, and extends to its material choices as well. Textiles can be mixed between seat and back to create a two-tone effect, or matched to create a monochromatic look. Plex’s signature denim offering delivers a more casual aesthetic. Nearly unlimited upholstery options allow for an appearance to meet any style, durability, or cost requirement.

Premiering at NeoCon in Chicago, Plex will be available to the trade in North America in July 2016.

About Herman Miller, Inc.
Herman Miller is a globally recognized provider of furnishings and related technologies and services. Headquartered in West Michigan, the global company has relied on innovative design for over 100 years to solve problems for people wherever they work, live, learn, and heal. Herman Miller’s designs are part of museum collections worldwide, and the company is a past recipient of the Smithsonian Institution's Cooper Hewitt National Design Award. Known and respected for its leadership in corporate social responsibility, Herman Miller has been included in the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index for the past 12 years, and has earned the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s top rating in its Corporate Equality Index for the past nine years. In fiscal 2015, the company generated $2.14 billion in revenue and employed over 7,000 people worldwide. Herman Miller trades on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol MLHR.