AMERICAN FURNITURE firm Herman Miller sets out to encourage collaboration at work with the launch of Sabha Collaborative Seating, a range of modular fittings that are designed to facilitate knowledge-sharing, break down artificial barriers and empower end-users through accessibility, variety and freedom of choice.

Derived from the ancient Hindi language, the word “sabha” translates as “gathering”, and it is this philosophy that underpins the range’s collaborative design.

After conducting research in the US, India, Australia and the UK to better understand the status and methods of collaboration in the workplace, Herman Miller found that although end-users want better engagement, it is becoming increasingly difficult to systematically make successful collaboration happen.

Sabha C Cove

The research also showed that more intelligent and user-centric design approaches could and would facilitate more fruitful collaboration between employees. Indeed, 70 per cent of collaboration in surveyed countries occurs at desks and, while on average these collaborative events tend to be short they are also simple, consisting of two or three people requiring little in the way of tools.

By offering workplaces increased collaborative environments, Sabha Collaborative Seating offers end-users the power to choose the method and environment best suited to their individual working habits.

The company’s president Andy Lock flew to Bangkok for the launch of the collection by its distributor, high-end brand Chanintr Living.

Andy Lock

“Herman Miller is more than 100 years old. It started as the Michigan Star Furniture Company. In the 1960s, the De Pree family decided to move into modern design, engaging with such big names in the design world as Gorge Nelson and Ray and Charles Eames, and moved away from the residential to the office,” Lock explains.

“We developed the first-ever office furniture system, ‘Action Office’ in 1964. It adopted a new approach to dividing up the office spaces, enabling the workers to have more flexibility. It was very radical at the time but became immensely popular.

Sabha Hero complete with stools fills the room.

“If you look back, you’ll see that most product development happened in North America and the products were quite North America-focused. Over the last 20 years, that has changed a great deal. Today we not only manufacture our products around the world, we also design them on a global scale. We also have a very capable Research & Development team based in China and India and their jobs are developing products that are tailored to the Asian market. Sabha has been developed in response to the specific needs of that market,” Lock continues.

Herman Miller is well aware that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to business. People work in a different ways, so the aim is to provide all end-users with tools that can be adapted to different needs.

 Sabha linear set

Sabha Collaborative Seating does exactly that, offering a flexible solution, right down to the accompanying free-standing occasional elements. Power fit

tings, storage elements and integrated lighting set the scene for creative interactions and intimate moments for focused collaboration.

“The ‘living office’ does not need to be adapted culturally. We believe that most of the settings can be applied universally regardless of cultural differences. The ‘living office’ will work anywhere. We know from our studies that 70 per cent of collaboration happens at an individual workspace. So if we can give people in offices a variety of settings to move about, life becomes easier. The job will be done more efficiently and the staff will be happy at work.

“Having an ergonomic chair is important. Most cases of office syndrome are caused by not having the right relationship between your body, the keyboard and the

monitor that you’re using. We work with a specialist who has great deal of expertise in posture and support in designing our new chairs.

“The other big trend we are seeing is what we call ‘Resimercial’ –a combination of the words ‘residential’ and ‘commercial’. These days the office looks like home and vice versa. There’s more seating, lots of break out areas and more collaborative spaces. I don’t see that changing,” he says.

“Sabha is very modular. So there are different components that can be brought together to suit different requirements. It also has a power capability, so you can use wi-fi and charge your devices at the same time.”