Brazilian aerospace firm Embraer’s new ‘Paradigma’ office chair might give you a palpable feeling of piloting your home office into the new decade. It’s intended to; the chair was carefully designed to emulate the designs of the company’s aircraft.
Paradigma is paradigm in Portuguese, and in this context indicates a shift in seating standards. Aircraft pilot seating is carefully designed to be as comfortably low-impact—that is, ergonomic—as possible, and Embraer sees this chair as a new benchmark, if you’ll excuse the seating-oriented pun, for offices and home offices.
The chair’s headrest is embossed with the Embraer logo—no surprise there. But it’s also embellished with cushioned stitching that echoes the Ipanema Beach sidewalk; as it reprises the song distantly, it also references one of Embraer’s plane interior designs, the Bossa Nova.
The chair’s base and support suggest piloting a plane during separation—that is, breaking free of the grip of gravity—and it may actually manage to suggest this thrilling moment of flight for earthbound office types.
The Paradigma may do just that. It has been shortlisted for The International Yacht and Aviation Awards 2020 Seating Award.