A research into the future of chairs, a search for the right compromises, the “greyness”: a transition between conventional sitting and alternative solutions and also between function/ergonomics and aestetics, utilizing the knowledge accumulated during the history of chairs. An attempt to reposition the chair to better comply with the challanges of modern life.
/Master’s Thesis project, 2013, Aalto University, Helsinki/
The seatpan and the backrest tilts 5 degrees on the rigid base, thus enabling a more active way of sitting, since the physical passivity, so common in today environments is the most harmful consequence of sitting. The seat is higher and shallower than usual, preventing the user to slide forward. The thighs slope downwards, so that the angle between the thighs and the back can be greater, making it easier to maintain a healthier posture, and also to stand up.
Research
Sedentary lifestyle, despite it’s severe physiological drawbacks is rapidly spreading: increasingly more people spend increasingly more time in a fundamentally flawed and unnatural posture that is sitting.
Chairs date back to an era, when people didn’t sit much, yet, despite the significant developments in our lifestyle, we use the same object in a fundamentally unchanged form today, eventhough its use drastically increased.
Therefore it is safe to say that chairs do not comply anymore with the challenges of today, they are lagging behind the current needs. A new, multidisciplinary approach is needed, which takes into account the cultural and lifestyle aspects of sitting just as well, as the ergonomic ones.
/A5 format, 70 pages/
