"When we took on the [Aeron] project, we were of the mind that we were going to break all the rules. We were the risk-takers, Bill [Stumpf] and I," says Don Chadwick, co-designer of the Aeron Chair. "We were willing to push the boundaries beyond what Herman Miller had done, and what a lot of other people had done." While Aeron Chair is the pairs' most famous collaboration, it wasn’t their first. They had been working together since 1977, when Herman Miller introduced Chadwick, fresh off designing Chadwick Modular Seating, and Stumpf, designer of the Ergon Chair, suggesting that the two team up to imagine a new kind of office environment that could be an alternative to Action Office 2. Their early proposal, an office system they called “Buroplan,” never made it to market. But the partnership stuck. Stumpf and Chadwick formed Chadwick Stumpf & Associates and continued developing their “humanomic” chair ideas from Buroplan. Six years of research into the ways people actually sit, work, and move culminated in the Equa Chair (1984), which Time magazine named “Design of the Decade” in 1989. Their next Herman Miller project was exploring furniture that would help people age in place in comfort and with dignity. Stumpf and Chadwick were assigned long-term sitting and observed that common recliners with foam cushions retained body heat and moisture and didn't distribute weight evenly. Their Sarah Chair design, completed in 1988, solved these problems with advanced kinematics and breathable textiles that allowed for better aeration. While that project, too, was shelved, the insights they gained became the foundation of what would be the culmination of their work together: the Aeron Chair, with its shocking (at the time) stripped-down aesthetic and revolutionary Pellicle, a mesh-like material. People were "bewildered" when they saw it for the first time, says Chadwick, because it didn't fit their expectations of an office chair. "We had no idea of the breadth of acceptance the chair would achieve in a short amount of time. That was beyond everyone's expectations." Photos courtesy of Brad Trent, Pippa Drummond, and Herman Miller Archives.