Design: A Chair with All the Angles

Adjustable accessories can be tailored to workers'body sizes

O.K., lean way back in the chair. Rest your head and stretch out. Relax. Now get to work.

Work? Yes, indeed. Ergonomic furniture design—that is, designing for the human frame—is confirming what some people suspected long ago: the mind seems to work better when the body is firmly and comfortably supported in a reclining position. Thomas Jefferson liked to read and write while taking his ease on a specially adapted chaise longue. Mark Twain and Winston Churchill often worked lying back, their heads supported, facing their...

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