Product Story - The Ardea are the great herons—those
elegant birds with the long, infinitely flexible necks.
Inspired by these majestic birds, Yves Béhar designed the
Ardea personal light to be infinitely adjustable. Its ingenious
neck design lets you direct Illumination right where you
need it—on paperwork, a keyboard, or a good book. And like
the herons, Ardea is kind to the earth.
Design Story - The Ardea personal light is part
of The Be Collection, a group of products that connect people
to their work in new and better ways. San Francisco designer
Yves Béhar, of fuseproject, wanted the Ardea personal light
to both reflect nature and have a minimal impact on it.
An admirer of Charles and Ray Eames, Béhar decided that
he too wanted to collaborate with Herman Miller. "Design
is very much at the center of Herman Miller's culture,"
he says. "So one day I just picked up the phone, called
them, and said, 'Let's work together.'" Four years later,
we introduced his two brilliantly innovative lighting products,
Ardea and Leaf.
Béhar says he's very content designing products for companies
who are "looking for departure, change, transformation.
I'm continually excited working with people who want to
move forward into the future and on to the next generation."
Form Follows Function - Louis Sullivan said it;
Ardea embodies it. The lamp's fluid aesthetic is a direct
result of its mechanical performance. Flexible hinges at
the base and head, continuous with the rigid structure,
allow infinite direction of the light and significantly
expand both the range of motion and light output. The Ardea
neck can extend from a task position of 18-1/2 inches to
34-1/2 inches.
Put it Anywhere - It isn't just the neck that makes
the lamp so flexible. A range of attachment brackets allow
Ardea to be freestanding or clamped to a work surface, or
mounted on Action Office panels or Ethospace and Vivo frames
and their tool rails. The compact fluorescent bulb has a
reflector for even illumination distribution in any position.
Environmental Enlightenment - Ardea
was developed for energy efficiency and to meet our own
stringent environmental protocol. So all materials and manufacturing
processes aimed for minimum environmental impact.
