Luxe et al are delighted to announce that Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation have been shortlisted for the Seating Award in The International Yacht & Aviation Awards 2018.
Gulfstream’s mission-specific seat styles, Sport, Classic and Minimalist, are a creation of Gulfstream’s industrial and interior designers that enhance customer comfort and interior flexibility while keeping interior design excellence and innovation at the centre of the passenger journey. For the development of the new Gulfstream G500 and G600 aircraft, Gulfstream wanted to offer seat options that would be tailored to clients’ mission requirements and to their individual design aesthetics without overwhelming the design process. The company also wanted to enhance customer comfort and aircraft interior performance while elevating its already high standards for design excellence.
Gulfstream’s interior and industrial design teams came together to collaborate on new seat styles that marry usability, comfort and aesthetics. The predominant seat styles are based on three aesthetics, Sport, Classic and Minimalist, and have been designed with the flexibility to maintain form and function while serving as a canvas for personalisation and customisation. Gulfstream’s veneer, trim and upholstery craftsmen customize the seats in-house, allowing for continuous feedback, improvement and collaboration in all aspects of the process.
The Minimalist Seat
Sport takes its cues from automotive and provides a stylish structure that suits a client who prefers a design evocative of high-performance standards and a seat that provides a strong level of bolstering ideal for extended periods of sitting. The Sport seat includes a contoured mattress insert for berthing. The Classic seat aesthetic offers an elegant design with mid-level bolstering that creates a blend of strong support and generous freedom of movement ideal for a more leisurely approach to the seating environment.
The Minimalist seat styles marks the other end of the spectrum from the Sport seat with the least amount of bolstering to promote a flatter berthing surface for the client who wishes to focus more on the sleeping surface over the seating style in their private aircraft. The individual tailoring of all three seat styles begins with additional styling details such as quilted inserts, decorative stitching, seat arm accents in leather, fabric, veneer or lacquer, and Gulfstream’s wide variety of fine leathers and upholstery, all custom-crafted for each aircraft.
The Classic Seat
Gulfstream’s mission-specific seating works well because it features flexibility in both human factors and design — the customer’s physical comfort is not compromised by individual design tastes and vice-versa. In development for nearly five years, Gulfstream designers took a holistic approach to the seat styles, creating a frame that can incorporate distinct ergonomic requirements and tailored design touches. All seats feature the same core back panel that can accommodate the build-outs of Sport, Classic and Minimalist shells while also including the capability for different design accents in the arm rests, stitching, leatherwork and other areas. The result is a bespoke design that also ensures a universal comfort level and consistent physical experience in flight for working, relaxing, dining and sleeping.
In keeping with Gulfstream’s commitment to quality and customers, the designs are going through rigorous testing, both in real-time ground-lab flight simulations and in the Gulfstream G500 and G600 fully outfitted test aircraft, to ensure the ergonomic consistency and design durability over long periods of time and in a variety of conditions.