Overview

Designers

Studio 7.5

Product Design Firm, Studio 7.5

Products by Studio 7.5

  • Front view of a Mirra 2 Chair with a Butterfly back in alpine and a silver alloy base. Front angle view of a Mirra 2 Chair with a Butterfly back in alpine and a silver alloy base.
    Mirra 2 Chair Herman Miller
  • Front view of a Mirra 2 Stool with a Butterfly back. Front angle view of a Mirra 2 Stool with a Butterfly back.
    Mirra 2 Stool Herman Miller
  • Front view of a Setu Stool with fixed arms, a light grey frame, silver alloy base and light grey suspension. Front-angle view of a Setu Stool with fixed arms, a light grey frame, silver alloy base and light grey suspension.
    Setu Stool Herman Miller
  • Front view of a Setu Side Chair with fixed arms in dark blue. Front-angle view of a Setu Side Chair with fixed arms in dark blue.
    Setu Side Chair Herman Miller
  • Front view of a Setu Chair with grey suspension, white arms and silver alloy base. Front-angle view of a Setu Chair with fixed arms and frame in white, base in silver and suspension in light brown.
    Setu Chair Herman Miller
  • Front view of a Zeph Side Chair with fixed arms and castors in olive. Front angle view of a Zeph Side Chair with fixed arms and castors in olive.
    Zeph Side Chair Herman Miller
  • Front angle view of a Zeph chair with fixed arms in olive. Front angle view of a Zeph chair with fixed arms in olive.
    Zeph Stool Herman Miller
  • Front view of a olive armless Zeph chair. Front angle view of Zeph chair in Olive.
    Zeph Chair Herman Miller
  • A Graphite dark gray Cosm low-back stool. A Graphite dark grey Cosm low-back stool. Select to go to the Cosm Stool product page.
    Cosm Stool Herman Miller
  • A high-back Cosm Chair with leaf arms in Glacier light blue. A high-back Cosm Chair with leaf arms in Glacier light blue. Select to go to the Cosm Chairs product page.
    Cosm Chairs Herman Miller

Burkhard Schmitz and Carola Zwick started their studio as a team of six in Berlin in 1992. The group was looking for the freedom to work on projects that interested them, and for the freedom to do so without bosses or titles.

This is the way they’ve operated ever since. “Everybody does everything”, says Schmitz, speaking for the group that now includes Carola’s brother, Roland Zwick, and a small team of seven. “That’s how we cultivate ideas and maintain our openness and curiosity”.

The group’s name, Studio 7.5, comes from an early idea to rent a 7.5-ton truck, put a model shop in it and drive from one project site to another. Obviously, freedom of movement is important for these designers. They move freely – and smartly – when designing products for their clients.

“Everybody does everything. That’s how we cultivate ideas and maintain our openness and curiosity.”

– Burkhard Schmitz – Studio 7.5

Studio 7.5 believes that the complexity of design problems requires collaboration and repeated testing of ideas in full-scale models, until the most elegant answer emerges. “You really have to work in three dimensions when designing products”, notes Roland. “Computer drawings just don’t give you the feel, the touch, the smell”.

They love designing furniture, or as they prefer to call it, “equipment”, as in the tools people need for the work that they do. They find designing office chairs in particular to be the most rewarding and have worked with Herman Miller on the award-winning Setu, Mirra and Mirra 2 chairs, and now Cosm. “We define not only how the chair looks but how it performs”, Carola says. As to how Setu, Mirra and Cosm all perform for you, they provide comfort no matter how or where you sit. “Our goal is to enable people to assume roles similar to that of a craftsperson in their shop, surrounded by what he or she needs to be most productive.”

Office/Studio

Berlin, Germany