Maintenance-free plastic bearings for office chairs

The Galileo executive chair by Nowy Styl GmbH, designed by Françoise-Hélène Jourda, promotes a healthy spine by encouraging dynamic posture changes. Featuring four patented technologies, it ensures exceptional seating comfort. Self-lubricating, maintenance-free iglide® polymer plain bearings from igus® enable smooth adjustments.

Research shows a leaning posture supports spinal health, yet users rarely adjust their chairs fully. To address this, Galileo's settings are largely automated. Nowy Styl chose iglide® bearings over metal for their low friction, wear resistance, and quiet operation. These bearings, available as catalog or custom solutions, enhance performance and durability.

Four-times patented seating furniture

The Galileo chair integrates four patented technologies that, along with advancements in the proven "Glide-Tec" mechanism, set new standards for ergonomic seating. At its core is the "Glide-Tec+" system—a movable seat surface that promotes optimal mobility while sitting, paired with a patented three-dimensional adjustable backrest.

Additional innovations include a patent supporting the natural transition between lordosis and kyphosis for spinal health, as well as patents for simplified seat depth adjustment and automatic weight adaptation. These features significantly reduce spinal strain, offering users improved comfort, effortless relaxation, and intuitive operation.

As a result, the chair was nominated for the Design Award of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Standard parts in focus

Standard plain bearings from the extensive igus® modular kit system, which contains the right bearing for almost any application, are exclusively used in the executive chair, which has been in the market since 2006. Special solutions for plain bearings should be avoided from the outset, in order to focus on the main theme - the ergonomics of the chair. Extensive sampling and technical consultations have taken place prior to the development. The bearings are then subjected to various tests in the in-house test facilities. Here the features of smooth running, low noise as well as ruggedness and durability have been the focus.

The savings are estimated to be about 50% due to the use of igus® plain bearings.