Lest you suspect that the multiple adjustment options of AllSteel’s Acuity Acufit Workchair put it in dangerous territory, I give you the words of U.S. Ergo, Independent Ergonomics Product Certifiers: “the results of this evaluation indicate that the Acuity chair offers very good dynamic support, comfort features and provides an effective range of adjustability to meet the needs of diverse users.” Further, “the chair's ‘topside’ controls are well designed, clearly visible, intuitive and easy to operate.”

Acuity Acufit Workchair. Manufactured by Allsteel.

If this brief mention of indepedent ergonomic certification doesn’t convince you, check out the detailed analysis of Acuity’s knee, hip, back, and elbow-saving features, where you’ll be privy to such insights as “peak pressures at the ischial tuberosities,” and “reduced abduction minimizing shoulder stress”-all complete with nifty color-coded stress mapping diagrams. Yes, the folks at Allsteel (and “folks” is correct here, since they’re headquartered in Muscatine, Iowa) are serious about workplace comfort. “Acuity” boasts no less than 14 ergonomically appealing qualities (high upper backrest, enhanced lumbar curve, and greater seat-height range most especially suit my unique pathologies) and seven adjustable features. But beyond the overt fine-tuning, the chair acts as if it has a brain; that is, non-adjustable features such as initial lumbar height, backframe flexion, and viscoelastic seat foam are ergonomically correct for every body (or at least for 95% of bodies). Thus the chair “gets you started,” in a sense, by already being tuned in to your unique contours, or, as Allsteel’s able PR folk (see above) have it: “Ergonomics that work seamlessly, controls that work intuitively, posture maintained invisibly.”

And the aesthetic? For that, Allsteel has wisely stepped beyond the bounds of Muscatine and engaged the services of Milan-based Design Continuum Italia. The result is a chair that approaches Allsteel’s objective, an “Elegant Purity of Form.” It is indeed a handsome chair (as office numbers usually go). The leather-upholstered armrests and seat and pewter-colored seatback-mesh are nicely contrapuntal to the structural polished chrome. In sum, they’ve done what they can to tone down the industrial elements, while still revealing the goods (and by “goods” I mean extraordinary functionality, which is what we’re after after all).

And the topper? It’s green, green, green, like cornfields in July: no PVC, 45% recycled content, production energy offsets with renewable wind, strict water stewardship manufacture guidelines, and a reclamation guarantee: ” We will take back, break down, recycle, and/or reclaim the chairs at the end of their useful life.”

An office chair that makes you feel good in more ways than one? And who’d have thunk it’d come from Iowa?

See Allsteel Office’s Acuity Workchair at IIDEX, NeoCon Canada in Toronto, September 25 - 26.