COR is looking to strengthen its position in the contract furniture market. ORGATEC 2026 provides the right stage. The upholstered furniture manufacturer from Rheda-Wiedenbrück has long set its sights beyond the private living room. Offices, hotels, conference rooms – wherever interiors are becoming more residential in character, COR sees opportunities for its collection. The contract business now accounts for more than a quarter of the company's revenue. That is considerably more than a welcome sideline. Especially as the traditional residential furniture market is hardly in a celebratory mood.

Leo Lübke is pushing this development forward. For the latest addition to the collection, the managing partner brought Werner Aisslinger on board. The two have known each other for years, but had never developed a seating product together. The idea emerged at ORGATEC 2024. Two years later, Floy has joined the collection. A chair designed to work equally well at the dining table at home and around a conference table. "Floy came to us at exactly the right time and is an excellent addition to our product portfolio, particularly in the contract sector," says Lübke.

Getting there took considerable work. Aisslinger developed the design at his Berlin studio, experimenting with seat shells produced using 3D printing, among other things. Back in Rheda-Wiedenbrück, the COR team worked on turning the concept into a production-ready construction. Materials, manufacturing, costs – the whole package. Because even for a design brand like COR, good looks alone are not enough. Ultimately, the product has to work in industrial production.

It comes as little surprise that COR has not arrived at ORGATEC with yet another conventional task chair. The company leaves desks and complete workstation systems to others. Its strength lies in upholstered seating. And the contract market is opening up additional applications for precisely that expertise. After all, today's offices are no longer supposed to look like the offices of yesterday. Lounges, meeting areas, informal gathering spaces – all environments where residential and working worlds increasingly overlap.

COR is by no means a newcomer to this business. Its references include projects for LEGO in Boston and Fielmann in Hamburg. The brand is also active internationally. Floy now adds to a collection through which Lübke is extending his company's established expertise in upholstered furniture beyond traditional residential settings. Not as an office furniture manufacturer in the conventional sense. But as a furnishing partner for spaces where people work, talk and, of course, sit comfortably.

On the opening day of ORGATEC, furnomics met Werner Aisslinger at the COR stand in Cologne. The conversation covered Floy, his collaboration with Leo Lübke and the economic realities of good design. But also the future of the office. And on that subject, Aisslinger has a theory that is likely to spark some debate at an office furniture trade fair.

furnomics: Mr Aisslinger, you're presenting a new chair at ORGATEC while also declaring that the heyday of the traditional office task chair is over. Are you about to abolish an entire furniture category?

Werner Aisslinger: No, of course those chairs will continue to exist. But I do believe that the traditional swivel task chair is a typology on its way out. The world of work is changing. People no longer necessarily spend eight hours at a fixed workstation. Instead, they move between different settings. Sometimes they work on a sofa, then at a table or at a bar. Working has become much more fluid. That calls for different seating solutions, which can be more comfortable and residential in character.

furnomics: That sounds like a working environment that not every company can afford.

Werner Aisslinger: Of course, traditional workstations still exist. If someone spends eight hours a day in a call centre, the reality is different. And there are workplaces where an ergonomic task chair is essential. But I also see the other development. Our studio designs a lot of coworking spaces, hotels and other working environments. In those places, it's no longer about assigning people a fixed desk. The aim is to offer different settings and atmospheres.

furnomics: You describe the traditional task chair as a declining typology. Isn't that a little premature?

Werner Aisslinger: About eight years ago, I travelled to Silicon Valley with a French start-up. We visited around 20 technology companies, including Google and Facebook. Even back then, people there spoke rather dismissively about traditional office chairs. They were mainly still used by technicians and programmers. Many others were already working with laptops, at standing desks or in all sorts of different places throughout the building. It was an entirely dynamic working environment even then. I don't believe that trend has reversed in the meantime.

furnomics: The reality in many German offices still looks quite different, though.

Werner Aisslinger: Certainly. But companies that want to bring their employees back from working at home need to offer them something. You can, of course, restrict remote working. But you can also create a working atmosphere where people feel comfortable. An environment that doesn't resemble the battery-hen offices of the 1980s. I'm a big supporter of this soft-work approach. Working no longer has to involve machine-like furniture.

furnomics: And Floy is intended as an alternative?

Werner Aisslinger: I do think Floy fits well into these new working environments. It won't replace an ergonomic task chair that meets the relevant standards. That's not its purpose. But it can be used wherever people work, have meetings, sit together or spend longer periods at a table. And at the same time, it works at the dining table at home. That connection was exactly the idea.

furnomics: A chair for both the private dining table and the conference room. At first, that sounds like a compromise. After all, the two markets have different requirements.

Werner Aisslinger: To me, it's not such a big contradiction. If we were sitting here 20 years ago, I might have said: I'm a product designer and I see the product as a sculpture. Today, I look at things differently. Alongside our design studio, we also have an interior architecture practice and carry out international projects, particularly in hospitality. We're currently working in eleven countries and have been active in 20 countries overall. Hotels, restaurants, bars and coworking spaces are part of our everyday work. So I already have that contract perspective in mind. At the same time, we also do private projects. And COR operates in both worlds as well. So it's a good fit.

furnomics: You make it sound simple. Yet the chair has to meet a wide range of requirements while retaining a distinctive design identity.

Werner Aisslinger: I've been around the block a few times. I've been observing the market for many years and have developed a sense of what works, what's fashionable and what might have lasting appeal. What interests me is whether you can create an archetype. In other words, a product that focuses on the essentials rather than simply reflecting the fashion of its time. Of course, no designer can completely detach themselves from the period they live in. Major design movements always have an influence. But you can try to develop something that will endure beyond them.

furnomics: A new archetype? By definition, there can't really be very many of those. Yet the furniture market constantly demands new products.

Werner Aisslinger: That's true. And of course, a product first has to prove itself in the market before anyone can eventually call it a classic. But an archetype doesn't necessarily have to be minimalist or influenced by the Bauhaus. It can also be soft and comfortable. Floy has very generous, soft shapes. At the same time, there's a clear structure of lines, straight elements, the division in the backrest and a particular zoning of the upholstery. None of this happened by chance. It follows a fairly rigorous geometry.

furnomics: What would be the ideal outcome?

Werner Aisslinger: If someone who knows nothing about furniture design sees the chair and asks: Hasn't this always existed? And someone else says: No, it's completely new. In other words, a product that looks so natural and self-evident that it feels as though it could have been around for a long time. But nobody has actually made it before.

furnomics: The design concept is one thing. A manufacturer then has to turn it into a product that can be produced and sold. How much of the original idea survives that process?

Werner Aisslinger: That depends very much on the collaboration. With Floy, we had two intensive years of development. My job was to make sure the original aesthetics and the overall character of the design weren't lost. At the same time, COR had to ensure that the construction, ergonomics, feasibility and costs all worked. It's a constant back-and-forth. It wasn't a case of handing over a design and seeing a finished chair two years later. We worked very closely together.

furnomics: Two years to develop a chair. What makes the process so demanding?

Werner Aisslinger: A lot of things come together. Every company has different machines, different skills, different employees and different capabilities. As a designer, you have to understand how a manufacturer operates. What do they produce themselves? Which parts come from suppliers? What expertise do they have? That creates certain opportunities, but naturally also limitations.

furnomics: Limitations you have to accept as a designer.

Werner Aisslinger: Of course. But I don't go into these projects completely naively either. I've accumulated decades of experience in product development. I have a fairly good idea of which processes and constructions can be used to realise a concept. And I also know a thing or two about tooling and material costs. I wouldn't present a brand like COR with a design if I had no idea myself how it could actually be manufactured.

furnomics: A designer who thinks about production costs before even starting the design. Isn't that rather unromantic?

Werner Aisslinger: I think it's simply sensible. You need to know where you want to develop something special and where you can use existing components. Take a castor for a chair, for example. I don't need to reinvent that for every new product. COR works with specialist suppliers. So you look at which existing component fits the design. Of course, I could insist on designing a completely new castor. But why would I do that if it creates unnecessary work? I wouldn't even suggest something like that to Leo Lübke. As a product designer, you also have to be smart about how you use components.

furnomics: Ultimately, the chair also has to generate a profit margin.

Werner Aisslinger: Exactly. That's why compromises are necessary. But the crucial thing is that the original idea doesn't get lost in the process. COR handled that really well. We worked closely together throughout the entire development period and kept looking for solutions together.

furnomics: That makes it sound as though this kind of collaboration isn't always a given.

Werner Aisslinger: It isn't. There are collaborations where you hand over your design and the manufacturer then does something with it. I've experienced that in Italy, for example. At some point, as the designer, you have very little influence over your own project. In the end, the product looks different from what you originally intended, but your name is still attached to it. That's obviously not ideal.

furnomics: Back to the office. If your theory is right and people increasingly move between different working environments, that will also change the business of office furniture manufacturers. Will the market still need so many specialised office chairs?

Werner Aisslinger: I believe working environments will become more residential overall. Traditional task chairs won't disappear entirely, because certain activities and requirements will continue to call for them. But another world is emerging alongside them. People change positions, work on sofas, at higher tables or in informal meeting settings. And you don't constantly need to develop new machine-like furniture for that. I think a chair today can contribute much more to creating a welcoming, residential atmosphere. Especially as the boundaries between working and living have become increasingly fluid anyway.

furnomics: So in future, the office chair will be competing with the sofa?

Werner Aisslinger: In a way, yes. But it's not about simply replacing a chair with a sofa. It's about offering different ways of working. People no longer sit in the same position all day. I think that's much more in tune with the times.

furnomics: And companies that want to bring their employees back to the office would be better off investing in sofas rather than mandatory attendance policies?

Werner Aisslinger: You have to offer people something. Of course, a company can try to enforce a return to the office through rules. But the alternative is to create a working environment where people actually enjoy spending time. A friendly, comfortable atmosphere that no longer resembles the conventional office landscapes of previous decades.

furnomics: So the battery-hen office has had its day?

Werner Aisslinger: I certainly hope we're moving away from that. Working no longer has to look the way it did in the 1980s. And that also calls for different furniture.