Flow with Kiaura Collection Built with Cognetic Technology

Industrial designer Aaron DeJule spent more than a decade working toward a single idea: seating that moves with the body, continuously and without effort, until the experience of sitting ceases to register. A serious car accident made prolonged sitting difficult for DeJule, and the chairs available to him, however ergonomically refined, fell short of addressing what he had come to understand as the deeper problem.

The work that followed was iterative, spanning years of prototypes built and refined in pursuit of something that resisted easy definition. What ultimately shifted the direction was an act of observation. While studying interactions with an early prototype, DeJule recognized that the movements making the greatest difference were not deliberate. Instead, they were subtle, continuous adjustments in posture and weight that occurred almost unconsciously. Cognetic Technology™, a patented gravity-powered multi-axis motion system invented by DeJule and realized through the Kiaura Collection™, designed by DeJule and manufactured exclusively by KI, was built around that discovery.

A New Framework for Seating

Seating design has historically been evaluated through an ergonomic lens, with attention to posture, lumbar support, adjustability, and muscle exertion. Cognetic Technology builds on those established principles while introducing two additional dimensions to how seating is designed and assessed. Neuro-cognitive performance addresses focus, processing, and mental clarity. Physical-physiological impact encompasses stress response, wellness, and how the body adapts over extended periods of seated work. Together, they define what KI has named a new category: human performance seating. “For decades, seating has asked the body to adapt to the chair,” said DeJule.

Controlled studies associated with Cognetic Technology lend support to that premise. Participants experienced reductions in anxiety of up to 30%, improved cognitive performance and processing during seated work, and improved comfort through the lower back and pelvis. Increased posture variability and reduced muscular effort were also among the findings, outcomes driven not by any action on the part of the person seated, but by the technology itself. Gravity and the body's own weight do the work, with no confusing levers to engage or complicated settings to manage.

Drawing from insights across neuroscience, ergonomics, physical therapy, sports performance, and human factors design, KI's research reinforced a principle that now runs through everything the company has built around the technology: people benefit from continuous, varied movement, and seating should make that possible without asking anything in return.

From Technology to Collection

The Kiaura Collection, designed by DeJule and manufactured by KI, is the first seating collection built with Cognetic Technology. Spanning task, conference, and lounge applications alongside complementary tables and ottomans, it brings the platform to market through a coordinated family of products with a cohesive visual and functional language. Forms are resolved and considered, with the technology integrated beneath the surface.

“When I invented Cognetic Technology, I sought to create a chair that disappears,” said DeJule. “The Kiaura Collection effortlessly micro-adjusts to your movements in real time. By working in harmony with gravity and the body's natural mechanics, it provides continuous support without ever having to think about it.”

For KI, the Kiaura Collection represents the opening of a longer effort. “This is more than a new seating collection,” said Tony Besasie, chief sales and marketing officer at KI. “It's a platform that introduces a different expectation for what seating can do for the body over the course of a workday. People feel that difference almost immediately.”

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