Back story: Aeris

We all know what’s good for us, yet often opt for a burger over a salad, high heels or tight leather lace-ups rather than health shoes and for sitting instead of the exercise we need. In addition to this, slick companies cater to our unhealthy preferences with purportedly healthy products. Beyond the flavour enhancers and deceptive packaging, however, there are also people who seek true solutions. One of these is Josef Glöckl, the founder of Aeris.

Like so many tales of success, this story, too, begins in a garage. During the 1980s, while still working as an engineer, Glöckl published numerous studies on projects in developing countries. He was a desk worker who, like one in seven German employees, suffered longer-term back pain. His wife, an osteopath, recommended that he try a sitting ball. It was made of plastic, was always rolling away and wasn’t height-adjustable. It was annoying, so Glöckl didn’t use it.

When his wife explained that her work in putting her patients through their muscle-building exercises was pointless when they just returned to sitting rigidly at their desks all day, Glöckl had an idea. In the aforementioned garage, he set about developing the active chair, the Swopper. Five years later, he was finally finished – only to find that no one in medical practices or rehab centres wanted his invention. ‘The healthcare industry doesn’t have any interest in recommending the Aeris Swopper, because they work with people who have back pain,’ says Glöckl. Faced with impending bankruptcy, he turned to specialised retailers, where he made his breakthrough.

Nearly 25 years later, the Aeris Swopper is still an innovation, as it allows motion in three dimensions. Through movement in all directions – left and right, forward and back, up and down – the sitter exercises their muscles without even working up a sweat. This makes it possible to effortlessly increase cognitive performance and burn calories. Admittedly, the Aeris Swopper won’t give you six-pack abs – but you’ll feel fit enough after your day at the office to go to the gym.

Apropos of cognitive performance: the multiple-award-winning Aeris Swopper can be thanked for not a few strokes of genius. For example, Google might never have been invented without it. While Larry Page and Sergey Brin were crafting their search engine in their garage in Menlo Park in 1998, they were sitting on the 3D chairs from Aeris. The chairs can take a lot: Larry Page’s Aeris Swopper can be admired in a museum, and even the prototypes are still in use in the Glöckl family home.

Josef Glöckl could have contented himself with revolutionising the workplace with the Aeris Swopper. But that’s not who he is. Aeris, a family enterprise in which Glöckl’s daughter Jenny now serves as Deputy CEO and his son Nicolas works in business development, has decided, with like-minded designers, to make sitting healthier through many further furniture models.

The Aeris Swoppster chair for children makes sitting a back-friendly pleasure for the very young among us. It was followed by the Aeris Muvman, which allows mobile sitting even while almost standing. In the Aeris 3Dee, designer Tobias Caratiola has successfully joined the three-dimensional technology from Aeris with the ‘must-haves’ of popular office chairs, such as rollers, a backrest and easy-care covering, in a timeless style. For Caratiola, design and technology are a unity meant to give people a sense of well-being.

The designer Andreas Ostwald, who is conquering private living space with the Aeris Numo, also places the human being at the centre. He is driven to give form to social ideas and to learn from nature. So it’s no coincidence that the patented kinematics of the cross-lever arms recall the spinal disc principle.

This year, Aeris presents its products in a fresh look and with new details. The company’s long-standing dedication to healthy sitting culture extends to such concepts as a digital workplace reminder to prompt the user to change positions. Josef Glöckl explains that, to him, the relaunch of his brand ‘isn’t just about a healthy back, but also an active lifestyle and greater quality of life.’

With current studies showing that ever more people suffer from back problems, the future of Aeris appears secure. In any case, the visionary Glöckl, who went into production with his chairs in 2002, won’t sit still when it comes to shaping a healthier (work) world. What exactly comes next, we don’t know, but it will no doubt be dynamic.


© Architonic