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Spark Awards Honor Steelcase Seating Products Node, i2i and cobi

GRAND RAPIDS -  Steelcase Inc. announced today that three of its high-performance seating products were honored by the 2010 Spark Awards, an international design competition. node, a mobile, flexible chair that supports the way students learn today, received a Spark! Award - the highest honor in the competition. Collaborative seating products i2i and cobi earned gold and silver awards, respectively.

All three products are currently on display through December 11 at the SparkChina exhibit, hosted by the Guangdong Industrial Design Association at the famous Canton Fairs in Guangzhou. In addition to the display in China, all of the winning products are on permanent display in Spark's unique design display at San Francisco's Autodesk Design Gallery.

"The Spark Competition is a globally prestigious and competitive award," said James Ludwig, VP of global design for Steelcase. "Steelcase is honored to have not one but three chairs among its recipients. We based all three products on extensive ethnographic research, and truly sought to design products for the classroom and office which addressed the need to connect and collaborate that students and office workers face each day."

Launched in 2007, the Spark Awards promote better living through better design. The jury seeks products from designers around the globe -- with any range of skill and education -- that address problems through design. The awards for node, i2i and cobi are the first for Steelcase in the Spark Awards.

Learn more about the products

node: The node chair transforms traditional classrooms, which are designed for static, one-way learning, with rows of desks. node is mobile and flexible, designed for quick, easy transitions between a lecture-based mode to a team-based mode, and back again, without interruption.

i2i: i2i is a new collaborative seating alternative with a unique dual-swivel seat that allows people to easily change postures so they can remain engaged, focused and connected. i2i enables people to collaborate with others eye-to-eye and eye-to-information, simply and comfortably. It's free of adjustments, yet has a flexing back that offers ease of movement and support.

cobi: The cobi chair is also designed to support collaboration by encouraging movement and supports a variety of postures. With only one adjustment (seat height), and a mechanism that's weight activated and senses and supports your own center of gravity, anyone can get comfortable quickly and stay comfortable during long meetings or work sessions.