If Only Chairs were Fluid, says Alysoun Stewart
Co-founder of Rhubarb, Alysoun Stewart, talks about fluidity in chairs.
Just Imagine the sheer joy of a chair that could morph and flex with your every movement, designed to support whichever muscle group was under stress with any particular activity. From a very early age most of us spend a huge proportion of our lives sitting – at a desk mostly. And this is despite the fact that we know, from the screaming of our bodies and from all the medical research, that this is really bad for us and causes untold problems.
The trouble is that by the time we have any ergonomic seating solution on offer it’s too late – the damage has already been done. It’s no wonder that products promising ergonomic miracles proliferate – the demand is huge thanks to enduring at least a couple of decades of poor posture due to seating chosen more for budget reasons than out of respect for the human frame.
So just suppose we could have a chair whose form was fluid, not solid; that was engineered to mould itself to mirror our movements and to constantly sense the level of support required for the neck, shoulders, spine, lumbar, kidney, coccyx, gluteus maximus, upper thigh, knee, calf and every other area of contact. If you think about it, if we had such a chair to use our inclination to move about when we are working would increase a thousand-fold, with all the consequent benefits.
I think the current developments of workstations centred on exercise machines of one sort or another is a bit crazy. It’s very trendy but it’s too much of a distraction when you are supposed to be working. How much better to have a chair that just meant you could move about naturally at your desk, supported the whole time. If only…
Alysoun Stewart - Alysoun is a co-founder of Rhubarb with two partners who, without any previous experience in the furniture sector, set about bringing a fresh approach to both product and service. In its five-and-a-half years of trading the company has built a strong reputation for the quality of its manufacturing and for its ability to create bespoke solutions for its customers. Image created by Francesca Rossi for Cherrill Scheer & Associates
