Patrick Lindon

Patrick Lindon (born 1965) is a Swiss industrial designer known for his business class seating and cabin interior for Swiss International Air Lines. He grew up in the small, mountain village of Walchwil in Switzerland. At the age of fifteen, he began to design and build tables and lamps for his family and friends. He opened his own workshop in 1983 when he was eighteen and has been producing his own line of modular furniture, which is sold worldwide, since 1998.

In 2001, Tyler Brûlé saw his furniture at a store in Zurich. Brûlé was looking for someone to work exclusively on a new, lie-flat-at-an angle seat and cabin interior for Swiss International Airlines and felt Patrick Lindon would be the right industrial designer for the job.

Pleased with the success of his Eclipse seat, in 2005 Swiss asked him to do some proposals for a new flatbed seat. Patrick Lindon has been teaming with James Thompson from Thompson Solutions, a research and development, engineering and patent holding company based in Kilkeel in County Down, Northern Ireland. They are best known for their space-saving airline seating design.

Patrick Lindon and James Thompson's most recent collaboration was unveiled on May 21, 2008 by Swiss International Air Lines. The new business class seats are fully reclinable and with a two meter long bed. Their arrangement will offer a high degree of privacy and mobility within the cabin. The lie-flat seats will have an air cushion feature, developed by Lantal Textiles, which allows seat hardness to be set for individual wishes and needs. The new seats will be gradually installed throughout the Swiss long-haul fleet starting November 2008.

Publications

* "The Making of a Business Class Seat", Karo Publishing, Basel 2007, ISBN 3-9521009-6-X
* "Aircraft Interiors", Daab Publishers, Cologne 2005, ISBN 3-937718-10-9
* "Young European Designers", Daab Publishers, Cologne 2005, ISBN 3-937718-42-7
* "Airworld", Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein 2004, ISBN 3-931936-48-1
* "Swiss Furniture and Interiors in the 20th Century", Birkhäuser Publishers, Basel 2002, ISBN 3-7643-6483-1

External links

* [http://www.patrick-lindon.com/ Patrick Lindon Industrial Design]
* [http://www.swiss.com/ Swiss International Air Lines]
* [http://www.thompsonsolutions.co.uk/ Thompson Solutions]
* [http://www.swiss.com/web/EN/about_swiss/media/press_releases/Pages/pr_20080521.aspx/ World-first Swiss business seat sets new comfort benchmarks]
* [http://www.swiss.com/web/DE/services/on_board/swiss_business/swiss_business_class/Pages/business_seat.aspx/ The new Swiss business seat]
* [http://www.lantal.ch/ Lantal Textiles]