If you’ve made it up to floor eleven here at #NeoCon09, you’ve undoubtedly seen the eager throngs arranged around and in the endless iterations of Knoll’s Generation Chair, the millennial answer to ergonomic task seating. But what you may not know is that—on the very same floor no less—Japan’s Okamura is debuting “Leopard: A New Concept Seating,” a multi-functional piece for the contract market that also has a thing or two to teach us about how to sit.

Leopard chair. Manufactured by Okamura..

At first glance you may wonder why Leopard seems to have a somewhat unorthodox forward tilt (sort of like the mid-range posture of a seat-ward-headed human). The answer is that Leopard is designed to take the strain off knees and back by accommodating the awkward mechanics of this somewhat un-natural motion.

Okamura characterizes this as a four-tier process: “Embraces: the seat inclines forward to meet you”; “Wraps: raised seat position gently returns to a 25 degree inclination”; “Comforts: backrest reclines tenderly to a 27 degree angle to cradle you like a hammock”; and “Lifts: backrest and seat gently guide you forward while providing natural support.” The effect of sitting in Leopard is as if a hyper-responsive, cotton-gloved, body-sized hand were lightly bringing you down to earth, or, in this case, into the breathable, mesh-lined fabric backrest of the welcoming confines of Okamura’s Leopard Chair.