Our office environments affect how we think and feel and profoundly influence our work. Founders Yves Béhar, Amir Mortazavi, and Steve Mohebi created CANOPY to offer luxurious, design-forward workspaces emphasizing sustainability, creativity, and productivity—places that foster imagination, collaboration, and discussion.
Béhar, who is also chief designer and founder of industrial design and branding firm fuseproject, collaborated with Mortazavi to realize CANOPY’s first Pacific Heights location. Béhar’s Sayl and Public Office Landscape designs for century-old interior design store Herman Miller are deployed throughout CANOPY’s various locations. Béhar’s collaboration with the brand was partly inspired by the work Charles and Ray Eames contributed and because his values aligned with the importance Herman Miller placed on design, the environment, community service, and the health and well-being of employees, guests, and clients.
Those values have also underpinned CANOPY from inception, which is why we selected multiple high-end Herman Miller designs for all CANOPY locations. Ahead of SF Design Week getting underway on June 6, we take a closer look at select world-class design pieces that our members use daily.
Public Office Landscape
Yves Béhar designed Public Office Landscape around the belief that the more people connect, the better they work. The modular system reimagines personal, group, and circulation desks as collaborative hubs that can be ergonomically configured in myriad ways to facilitate a constant flow state. As workers switch fluidly between deep-focus individual work and spontaneous conversations, meetings, and teamwork as they move through the office space, ideas flow more quickly and with greater insight.Â
A core component is the inviting Social Chair, which can accommodate multiple workers and sitting postures and links to other chairs, desks, and storage units. Crafted from expanded polypropylene and minimal foam, the Chair is lightweight and highly recyclable.
Case Study: Béhar tested prototypes at the fuseproject office in San Francisco and worked to refine the concept with his team over 18 months.Â
Moving from a cramped start-up location to a vacuous former warehouse in San Francisco’s Potrero Hill neighborhood, Public Office Landscape enabled the team to create an energetic office that invoked the exuberant buzz of their previous location while balancing group and private spaces that help to increase the flow of ideas between individuals and creative teams.Â
“There were some concerns about whether we would diffuse the hive intensity that we had,” Béhar comments via Herman Miller, adding that his studio maintains a workplace in the era of cloud and mobile connectivity because they believe that people work better together.
“We wanted this to be a social landscape, and it’s inherent in the name. It’s helped us build collaborative attitudes stronger than any staff training could have done.”
CANOPY uses Landscape throughout its locations: members can sit down to do focus work, welcome colleagues or guests to sit alongside them to ideate, review code, spreadsheets, and sketches, or roll in AV equipment for a presentation.
Sayl Chairs
Sitting all day–a necessary element of knowledge work–can take a toll on our bodies and energy levels. Béhar reimagined simple materials for Herman Miller through intelligent engineering, creating a complete seating family that delivers exceptional design, ergonomic support, and value. Sayl’s unframed, suspension bridge-inspired 3D Intelligent suspension back, realized in elastomer strands that vary in thickness and tension, offers form-fitting support without hampering the occupant’s ability to stretch and move when seated.Â
Because Sayl’s design leverages passive PostureFit sacral support, the spine maintains its natural S shape and posture, limiting physical fatigue. Sayl’s unframed back and Y-Tower support offer a striking visual aesthetic and a tangible peek into its structural design principles. By taking the chair down to its elementary architecture, Béhar’s work chair design uses less material while providing ergonomic support for people weighing up to 350 pounds (159 kg). Sayl is produced almost entirely in recyclable materials and zero PVC on three continents to minimize the distance between the factory and the buyer, substantially reducing its overall carbon footprint.Â
It also comes in a myriad of aesthetics and colorways. Stretch-knit back covers envelop Sayl’s structural elements to provide a softer, more blendable aesthetic while maintaining the striking architectural beauty, support, and breathability of its signature 3D suspension back. Fully upholstered work chairs also mimic the 3D Intelligent rest, providing similar support via a more traditional back.
You can find Sayl in CANOPY’s communal spaces, quiet spaces, and private offices in Herman Miller’s light purple Medley fabric on a black frame mesh and base, Raf Simons Kvadrat fabric in a green and black pattern on black, Camera hemp fabric on black frame, and heathered gray fabric.
Chadwick Modular Seating
Chadwick Modular Seating has been a CANOPY mainstay since its inception as it allows for endless combinations that maximize the utility of any floor space. Designer Don Chadwick first launched this concept in 1974, comprising five simple sculpted shapes that provide support with a soft, elegant look; contemporary versions are wired to carry power to allow device charging. Each piece has a fully upholstered front, back, and sides and can serve as an end, interior, or solo seat in any arrangement–you’ll see Chadwick upholstered in lilac at CANOPY Pacific Heights, anchored by Alexander Girards’ sectional hexagonal Vitra table in polished aluminum, and in green at Jackson Square Space as a nod to the copper patina of a neighboring historic building.
Nelson Bubble Lamps, designed by Charles Nelson
Designer Charles Nelson’s family of spherical silhouettes have an ephemeral floating quality and come in ceiling-hung, floor, table, and wall-mounted variations to bring orbs of luminosity to the interiors of CANOPY Pacific Heights.
Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman
Inspired by the classic 19th-century club chair and designed to have “the warm, receptive look of a well-used first baseman’s mitt,” Charles and Ray Eames’ lounge chair has been an icon of American design since its 1956 debut. A tilted seat takes weight off the spine and distributes it to the back of the chair; the lower cushion section supports the lower back, ensuring the occupant is equally comfortable reading, watching a video, or engaging in conversation. The ottoman also provides a health benefit, allowing us to take the weight off our feet and allow blood to circulate more freely. The set is available in various veneers, including an oiled-finish walnut and santos palisander that invoke the original rosewood design, and multiple upholstery options. At CANOPY, you’ll find these sets in our private offices.
Eames Aluminium ChairsÂ
Equally suited to home and the workplace, flowing lissomé lines elevate Eames aluminum frame chairs–introduced in 1958 as outdoor seating–above a typical desk, conference room, or dining room chair. The chair’s innovative suspension, created by stretching a continuous seat-back upholstery between lightweight aluminum side ribs, creates a supportive, flexible “sitting pocket” that conforms subtly to the body’s shape. Upholstered in traditional fabric or leather, chairs are ribbed at 1 7/8-inch (4.78 cm) intervals for a sleek, refined look; frames are available in powder coat finishes and polished aluminum, including archival eggplant. At CANOPY, these chairs sit seamlessly in Jackson Square’s contemporary conference rooms.Â
Book a tour of a CANOPY SF location to see pieces in situ and discover how design informs the CANOPY membership experience.
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About Yves Béhar
Béhar grew up in a bicultural home, influenced by his East German mother and Turkish father. “One is functional and modernist and the other, expressive and poetic,” he notes via Herman Miller. “I always try to marry the two in my projects.”
An Art Center College of Design graduate, Béhar began his career at high-tech Silicon Valley clients such as Apple and Hewlett Packard, eventually gravitating into the sport, apparel, technology, and furniture arenas. Yves Behar is the Co-Founder, CEO, Designer, and board member of CANOPY. Yves founded fuseproject in 1999 to work with founders, C-suite execs, and product leaders, combining brand and experience to bring “firsts” and category-leading products to market. Yves has collaborated with Herman Miller, GE, Puma, PayPal, SodaStream, Samsung, Issey Miyake, and Prada. Yves’ works are included in the permanent collections of museums worldwide, and he is a frequent speaker on design, sustainability, and business.
Béhar has been called “the multi-disciplinary designer of our time” and awarded the prestigious National Design Award from the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian National Design Museum, where his work is part of their permanent collection.
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Musee de Design et D’arts Appliques Contemporains in Lausanne, Switzerland, have hosted solo exhibitions of Béhar’s work. Â