Iron Furniture Design · 2020
Alcyone Standing Chair
- A' Design Award 2020 Iron Winner in Furniture Design
- Awarded April 15, 2020
- CLIENT: Tetsuo Shibata
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 15,238
- Verification code 857F262373 · Verify this award
About Alcyone Standing Chair
For him, one important goal in coming up with the shape of this project was to simulate the human body’s quality and natural form as much as possible. He uses the human form as a metaphor for the good posture, bodily flexibility and active lifestyle everyone aspires to attain. With this product, he assists with three simple movements people perform during the course of a workday: sitting and standing, twisting the body and stretching the back over a backrest, therefore improving health and increasing productivity.
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- In designing this product, he was hoping to maintain a good posture, keep his legs moving and to be able to use it as a standing chair in his office and home. His challenge was to design it with a backrest that accommodates people of all height and that they can use as a regular chair at their existing work space. It was also important to him that the seat be raised and lowered and twisted sideways while being seated. This allows the users to exercise their lower body and hip muscle regularly.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- Frame width at widest portion of base is 813 mm. Frame width at lower back is 432 mm. Frame depth at base from ankle section to back of base is 559 mm. Frame depth from ankle section to back of push bar is 483 mm. Height of frame is 1067 mm. Width of seat is 508 mm. Width of backrest at its widest is 343 mm. Height from bottom of seat to top of backrest is 584 mm. Lowest variable seat height at center of seat is 584 mm. Highest variable seat height at center of seat is 864 mm.
- Tags
- sit, stand, bend, twist, stretch
- Production Technology
- Because the seat of this product is in somewhat of an upright position, the challenge was to design the frame to support it and to make it height adjustable. The idea of using a twisting metal frame came to me gradually after I experimented with the bent basswood and found it difficult to bend without compromising its structural integrity. The sinuous curve of the metal base frame came out of the need to have enough space for a person to sit and stand and to hold the seat.
- Design Challenge
- The hardest part of the design process was developing a mechanism that would allow the seat to move up and down for height adjustment. I did many detailed sketches showing the weight transfer path from the seat to flexible prongs to steel cable to conduits and to the curving metal frame. A three inch scale model I built was extremely useful in designing the details of this mechanism as well as the shape of the metal frame itself and in incorporating them both functionally and aesthetically.
- Project Duration
- I have worked at nights and on weekends on the design, a scale model, and a full-scale mock-up of this project since August 2018 in Baltimore, Maryland, finishing it in October 2019. Computer rendering of this project was started in late October 2019 and finished in late January 2020 in Baltimore.
- Operation Flow
- The main advantage of this product is that it can be used both as a standing chair by raising the seat and as a conventional chair by lowering the seat. This is possible due to the use of high memory foam inside the removable cushion. The middle portion of the seat shell is rounded to give extra foam depth so that when a person lowers the seat to sit down, the compressed foam creates their own individualized seat. To move it, simply tilt it backward until castors engage and push forward.
- Research
- One important goal in coming up with the shape of this project was to simulate the quality and natural form of the human body as much as possible and to use the seat’s vertical and lateral movement as well as its performance to address some of the physical problems we all have while working at a desk. Much of my research involved talking to physical therapists, reading newspaper articles on health and science and books on both metals and plastics, and visiting local metal fabrication shops.
- Inspiration
- Inspiration for this project comes directly from my own experience of having worked in an office for many years and the adverse effect that had on my health and body. It is clinically proven that sitting for a long period of time without moving can lead to many medical ailments such as round back, peripheral edema, and swayback. I wanted to design a new type of chair that people could use in the office and the home that would allow them to keep their bodies moving while working at their desks.
Colors of Alcyone Standing Chair
Design Interview about Alcyone Standing Chair
After having had some health issues from sitting and working long hours at the office for many years, I wanted to design a product that would help me stand and work in an office while keeping my other body parts such as legs, hips, glute and upper body engaged at the same time. That health incidence in spite of being fairly active after hours and on weekends made me realize the importance of making a fundamental change to the way I work and exercise in order to prevent further damage to my health. And this started with evaluating the way I worked in terms of body anatomy and focusing on three things; maintaining a good posture throughout the day, keep moving as much as possible while working and to take a break often to do a quick workout assisted by a product I could design myself. With the backrest attached to the seat which follows the shape of natural arch of spine, keeping a good posture becomes easier as it prevents slumping forward and making the seat move vertically and sideways would allow body parts to keep moving as well. In order to engage in a bit more vigorous movement, I wanted to use this product as a chair/ exercise equipment with which I could perform sit and stand movement while seated, do hip twisting sideways to stretch hip flexor muscles and do a backward stretch by raising both arms over the backrest. Anyone could perform all of these exercises quickly and discreetly while working in the office or at home.
My plan is to build a prototype whether through industries and manufactures interested in financing and fabricating the product or through local fabrication shops I can work with directly. Production of parts will have to be relegated to several different shops and plants specializing in production of specific components. After the prototype is built, my hope is to have it tested and evaluated by different groups of people for a few months to find out the strengths and weaknesses of the design, to improve it and to promote it through advertisement, exhibition and/ or social media.
This was a completely self-initiated project which took approximately two and a half years working part time in my own studio, and can be split into first and second phases. The first was an investigational phase and involved doing series of sketches, building scale models and a full scale mock-up and getting feedbacks from my colleagues. This is the period when I produced perhaps the largest amount of sketches, models and photographs to document manual fabrication processes for future reference. The second phase was more specific and concentrated on the current design that took about a year to the time I nominated my design to this competition.
This is an important point about this project. And it is that, at this point, I am not certain that this product will work, much less, whether or not to sell or lease the production rights. By entering this competition, the pursuit of “nuts and bolts” portion of this project was put on hold in favor of refining the visual images which by themselves will be very useful in refining or redesigning the mechanical parts of the project in tangible three dimensional form. As I mentioned before, I would like to put the product through consumer testing and based on users’ feedback, it will be improved and redesigned slightly before considering leasing the production rights. Then there is a question of applying for the patent which will need to be secured before sending it for production. This patent will be strictly for the seat’s height adjustment mechanism and not for the overall design.
The target customers would be office workers with desk jobs because I was one of them in architect’s office. They typically sit in front of computer and work long hours without given a chance to move around much. My hope, especially in large offices, is to designate open space that includes high table/ counter that can accommodate standing chairs to be used for part of the day with computers spaced far enough apart on countertop. This standing chair is light weight and can easily be moved around to different parts of office by those wishing to work privately or for an impromptu meetings among coworkers. Other potential customers would be patients in a hospital or rehabilitation center recovering from leg injury, for example. This product could be used as an intervening device to get them to slowly regain strength and movement in lower body while also keeping upper body active by stretching, twisting and bending backwards. Artists, writers, security guards, IT specialists, announcers or anyone else whose job requires sitting down for most of the day could also be customers for this product.
What I found to be unconvincing in other so called “standing chair” on the market was the fact that however flexible or capable of tilting forward and sideways they may be, seats are positioned flat and horizontally in relation to the floor on which they stand. The seat on my standing chair is positioned at roughly 60 degrees – an angle that lets the user lean on it rather than sit on it as you would on a conventional chair. This leaning position also forces the user to distribute his weight to his legs. But my chair lets him distribute it to the third point of the body – arch of the spine, thanks to the backrest he can rest lower back, or thoracic curve, on. This not only prevents the entire weight being placed on the sitting bone – a source of much discomfort when sitting down for prolonged period of time but also keeps users from developing conditions such as peripheral edema and swayback. The backrest which is an integral part of the split seat is bent slightly backward in order to maintain good posture and to stimulate the back at all time to keep the spine flexible.
I did some research on historical precedence for standing chair and found that in churches of the Middle Age Europe and even in historic churches and cathedrals of today, front edge of the folded up wooden seat is widened and supported by “misericord” or mercy chair which acts as a shelf to support the weight of a person leaning on it for long period of prayer. Often, these misericords had elaborate carvings of grotesque looking human, beasts, animals, birds, foxes, mermaids, etc. Since bird carvings were more pleasant to look at, I wanted to know the name of the bird most commonly depicted and found out it was Halcyon, a mythical kingfisher bird known to calm a rough sea. Kingfisher bird is also known as Alcyone in Greek myth and is a name of the brightest star in the Pleiades cluster, and I thought this was a perfect metaphor for my standing chair with the bright and colorful seat, or seven main stars, located centrally and supported by many points along the twisting metal frame that are countless smaller stars of the furthest galaxy.
The project was divided into two major phases; analog phase and digital phase. Analog phase is subdivided into sketches, scale models and a full scale mock up. Digital phase is subdivided into 3d rendering on Rhinoceros and 3DS Max programs. For sketches, I used mechanical pencil with various lead grade, tracing paper, sketch book, light table for tracing old drawings, a small copier and a scanner for scanning my own sketches and photographs. For scale models, I used X Acto knives and a hotwire cutter to cut high density foam, hot glue gun to glue corrugated cardboards, spray gun to spray latex paint and a variety of hand tools to work with materials such as modeling clay, modeling aluminum wires, steel wire, 1/32” and 1/16” thick basswood sheets, aluminum pipes, small springs, epoxy glue, wire mesh and wooden dowels. For a full scale mock up which was built to test the comfort level of the seat at my own height, I used carving knives to carve the shape of the seat out of Styrofoam by hand and used table saw and band saw to cut 3/4” plywood to build a pedestal for the seat. For digital phase, my technical assistant and I used Rhinoceros, a 3d rendering computer program for initial low resolution rendering and 3ds Max program for high resolution and photo realistic rendering.
The seat’s height adjustment mechanism is probably the most unique aspect of this product and it was the most difficult part of the entire project. This was achieved through the use of steel cables attached to flexible prongs on both sides of the seat and they run through two conduits on each side that have PTFE flanged sleeve bearing inserted at both ends for minimal friction. These conduits or bent steel pipes are wrapped with Titanium metal support pieces that in turn are welded to vertical portion of the steel frame where the weight is transferred. The advantage of this system is that it uses push-pull forces generated by the curving cables and flexible prongs and suspends the seat. And regardless of the height position of the seat, it will not drop when the cables are unlocked and manual force is not applied to move it. Another unique aspect of this design is that it can be used as an
exercise chair with which users can perform a simple sit-and-stand movement by holding the thin edge of the seat and propelling himself up and down using only his leg muscles. This chair can be transported and moved around easily by tilting it back slightly and pushing it forward with minimal force when castors are engaged. It can also be
stacked by folding the flat portion of the steel base up and stored in closets in office, home or school.
exercise chair with which users can perform a simple sit-and-stand movement by holding the thin edge of the seat and propelling himself up and down using only his leg muscles. This chair can be transported and moved around easily by tilting it back slightly and pushing it forward with minimal force when castors are engaged. It can also be
stacked by folding the flat portion of the steel base up and stored in closets in office, home or school.
During the analog phase, I worked by myself for the most part. The most meaningful collaboration during this phase was the studio critique when I invited a couple of my design colleagues from outside. Their main critique of the seat I made out of Styrofoam was that the backrest needed to be softer, not rounded and pointed, and be more flexible so that it presses against tightened back muscles more gently. Another suggestion was that the seat height needed to be adjustable not only for accommodating people of different height but also for using it as a regular chair that they could sit at their normal sitting height. I agreed and incorporated all of their suggestions into my final design. For digital phase, I collaborated with an architect friend of mine who was very well versed in 3d computer rendering. His knowledge of Rhinoceros 3d rendering program lent itself well for organic shape of my standing chair design. It is an excellent tool for rendering with accuracy and applying details and reflective quality. And since I had already built a scale model at 3”=1’-0” with moveable seat built into it, he could take an accurate measurement from the model for the twisting steel base and the seat at different heights - area that cannot easily be drawn with accuracy on Autocad program - and render them in such a manner as to be ergonomically and aesthetically pleasing. For the final push, I asked him to refine the image so that the glossy quality of the steel base, prongs and conduits, saturated color of the seat, softness of the seat cushion and flexible quality of the fabric mesh would be shown with high degree of accuracy using 3DS Max program.
One important goal in coming up with the shape of this chair was to simulate the natural form of the human body as much as possible - its curve, flexibility, durability, aerodynamics and adaptability, among other characteristics - and to use the chair's vertical and lateral movement as well as its performance to address some of the physical problems we all have while working at a desk, such as lower back pain, bad posture, peripheral edema, and forward slump. To help achieve and maintain this natural curve, the shape of the seat and backrest as a unit follow closely the natural arch of the spine - the foundation of a healthy body and mind. Much of my research, then, involved talking to physical therapists and chiropractors and reading numerous articles online about the ailments and ill health effects of sitting too much. The Washington Post's excellent Health & Science section was another valuable research source that advocated for a healthier lifestyle and talked a great deal about the peril of our immobile modern lifestyle and what we can do to correct it holistically. Earlier in the design process, I built a full scale mock-up of this chair by carving a seat out of Styrofoam and placing it on a pedestal base made out of plywood, then testing it on myself at home. The current design came about around this time after I built a scale model at 3"=1'-0" using high-density foam, clay, and soft aluminum modeling wire. As further research into materials and fabrication methods for this product, I read "materials For Inspirational Design", on both metals and plastics, by Chris Lefteri, and I visited local metal fabrication and auto mechanic's shop to gain understanding of the properties of the materials to be used for my project.
This standing chair design consists of two separate components; Tactile quality and visual appearance of the product which is Design and mechanical and engineering components of this product that allows the kinetic movement of the seat propelled by human power which may be called Invention. Although, it is the invention part that makes it functional and practical as a standing chair, it is ultimately the Design that has a potential to appeal to users’ senses and feelings that lead to familiarity and attachment to this product. Another reason had to do with potential end users and where they live and I thought if I could first appeal to group of people most inclined to use this product and let them extol the virtue of this product, or disapprove of it completely, where else to find them but in European countries where more health and environmentally conscious people live per capita than anywhere else in the world. So my decision to enter this particular design competition was a conscious one. And instead of exhibiting it in the galleries as a stand-alone precious object, I wanted to share it with global audience, designers and non-designers alike, through an international competition that had enormous outreach and publicity potential.
Grand Interview about Alcyone Standing Chair
As you adjust the height of the seat component manually, vertical cables (2) attached to the seat with flexible prongs bend and stretch inward and outward slightly and by using this stress and friction between cables and conduits (4) attached to the stainless steel base frame, the seat is “suspended” at a precise height location that a user adjusts to. The threaded locks on the conduits assure that the seat will be secured and will not move. This is one of the main features of this product that I discovered as I was working with the scale model which was an indispensable tool not only for testing many ideas I had but also for rendering three dimensional computer model that allowed me to see the product from multiple angles. Because of the complexity of design and specialized equipment and resources needed, the final working prototype was never built to this date.
Even though I have been conscious of leading healthy lifestyle generally, I was contradicting myself when I found myself emulating bad workplace habits from my coworkers over the years. These included sitting all day in office, not getting up enough to stretch and exercise, developing lower back pain that resulted in medical treatments, etc. At the beginning of design process, I connected with my extensive experience in building architectural and exhibit design models using a variety of fabrication materials and wanted to see if I could experiment and come up with an innovative office chair design that would alleviate some of the health problems I was having. I started by selecting flexible materials such as steel cable, stainless steel, elastic cords, injection moulding materials and high-density foam that I had a lot of experience working on models but had little experience building full-scale prototype pieces with. My goal then was to combine my interest in addressing workplace health issues and designing everyday furniture piece that is functional, mechanically sturdy and aesthetically pleasing.
It was important to me that an individual user attain the ownership of this product and to feel comfortable using it to achieve the desired sitting position. The memory foam (SAF’s) attached to the seat shell with Dual Lock and elastic horizontal ropes of the backrest achieve this personalized experience. I also wanted users to be able to both “lean” lightly on the standing chair and to “sit” as if sitting in the conventional chair and thick memory foam attached to the concave shape of the seat shell achieves this purpose. Since everyone’s fitness and physical tolerance level is different, this chair along with height adjustable desks would be introduced as an alternative to the conventional workspace that can be used and shared with those who are simply interested in improving and maintaining overall good health.
The metal frame base is the structural foundation of the chair that must support the weight of a person sitting on it. And just like the Brno Tubular Chair Design, the base at the bottom is flat and more rigid and as it rises, the seat starts to “float” in the air. And the frame is twisted in order to make room for and accommodate user’s physical size and his or her sideway movements. To achieve maximum strength and durability, the frame base is made of continuous stainless steel piece held by web pattern that is broken only at the hinged (2) locations to allow the flat bottom base to fold up. Besides accomplishing functionality, the sinuous frame also simulates flexibility and twisting motion of the user while exercising.
There are three things that I learned from talking to physical therapists and chiropractors about how to prevent lower back and back muscle pain. These are; keeping good posture, building strong core muscle and avoiding tailbone fatigue. Keeping good posture means stretching thoracic curve of spine and not slouching and sliding bottoms forward on the chair. Building core muscle greatly reduces the burden placed on the lower portion of the spine - allowing the muscle and spine to work in tandem. Avoiding tailbone fatigue means not placing person’s entire weight on a single point of the body, glutes, for a long time because of the residual effects it may have on attached muscles, ligaments and tendons which also get injured easily. While these three clinical points greatly influenced my design process, I wanted to place just as much emphasis on maximizing the body movement, dynamic as opposed to static sitting positions and extent to which bones and muscles can be flexed periodically while working at the office for an extended period of time.
Repetitive sitting - standing exercise which is similar to sit-ups helps tighten core muscle, strengthens abdominal and neck muscle and keeps the blood flowing to every part of your body while you are at it. This can be done by keeping both feet flat on the floor, leaning slightly against the seat component, holding the edge of outer seat shell and repeating the sitting - standing motion by bending knees and straightening them. This way, you are strengthening quadricep and hamstring muscles as well as maintaining the proper thoracic and lumbar curve afterwards – an ideal orthostatic position. Twisting or rotation exercise is great for body’s stability, strengthening core muscles, improving posture and increasing flexibility in the hips and spine. And because it stretches tight shoulder, chest and abdomen muscles, it reduces the risk of injury particularly for those who are involved in athletic activities like myself. When doing this exercise, it is best to sit firmly on the seat to stabilize yourself since you are twisting your body in concert with the seat which also twists and stretches sideways. Stretching backward or back bending helps with spinal flexibility, improves posture, reduces stress and energizes nervous system. And this can be done with the help of the curving backrest. One simply needs to raise arms, lean against the backrest and slowly fall backwards and it let you stay at that suspended position for as long as you can tolerate.
As I mentioned earlier when I talked about the height - adjustable mechanism, the scale model for this project was an important design tool without which the final design solution would not have been achieved. The model was built using 2.5mm soft aluminum wire for modeling, 3mm aluminum tubing, 3mm spring, 1.5mm steel wire, sculpted and painted high density foam for the seat component, wooden dowels and fabric mesh for the elastic backrest. These were used to simulate the effects and movements of the actual chair as much as possible. As a sketch model (conceptual model in architecture term), it was not so much a precision model as a test model with rough edges to find out how different parts and components would work and react with each other. For instance, I wanted to see if the details for the height-adjustable mechanism I had sketched out earlier would work on the model and soon found out that bent conduits attached to the aluminum base frame would need interior bearing for the steel wire’s smooth entry and exit. Prongs and steel wire connection also needed to be rigid and made out of durable materials to prevent metal fatigue failure. The proportion of the steel base frame had to be correct both visually and structurally and be continuous from the base at the bottom to the push handle at the top for maximum stability and strength. I also wanted to see if there would be enough clearance between rear of the seat shell and upper portion of the metal base frame as a person moves the seat up and down to adjust to his or her desirable height. These tests could only have been done on the physical model and not in drawings when you are working with non-linear organic shape such as this standing chair.
I am amazed at how many innovative and cutting-edge office chairs are being introduced every year. There are now “smart chairs” that alert you to sit up straight when you slouch forward for a long time and to take a break and exercise after sitting too long in the chair. There is a shell shaped chair design that swivels around and has an outlet and USB port for recharging. It also has compartment at the wide base where you can store books, pens and papers and electronic devices. Now you can also bring your computer screen attached to robotic arm to you while you lie down in bed. All these inventions are great to use especially in large office space, rehabilitation center and community center for young, elderly people and students alike. But with the advent of Zoom, Skype and video conferencing that eliminate the need to go to the office anymore, I wonder if these devices including my chair will be in demand 10 years from now. With so many more people being health conscious nowadays, an ideal work situation for all of us would be to spend half a day in the office and spend rest of the day outside (weather and schedule permitting) either doing office work or working out. So that I do not envision my Standing Chair design to be influencing the future of ergonomic office design much but I do think that it would be appreciated and used by small groups of people - artists, craftsmen, doctors, therapists, cooks, elderly people and those trying to regain lower body strength after injury who are working in a more intimate work environment.
Actually, design process for this self initiated project which went through several phases started much earlier when I was doing just sketches and writing. It went through extended design process because I was working on this project after work and in the middle of other furniture design projects. During this time, I had an opportunity to observe office workers’ work habits, talk to healthcare professionals and to present drawings and a full scale mock-up at the local Design Soiree. The mock-up was built out of plywood for the base and the seat was carved out of laminated Styrofoam with a long blade X-Acto knife and a drywall file. The detachable seat was shaped to roll forward and backward on the plywood base so that the user could experience both sitting on the regular chair and standing (or leaning) against the chair at the same time and had many good feedbacks from them. I then started to design the chair in earnest during the summer of 2019, first building a model based on the success and failure of the mock-up and series of sketches I had done. I did the final hand drawings in scale on tracing papers before my architect friend and I started to model in 3 dimensional computer rendering program. I had also consulted with an auto mechanic who had an extensive experience bending steel pipes and tubes with CNC 3-D freedom tube bender that would be able to bend each section of my chair’s steel base before cutting and welding. All these interactions with professionals gave me both design and technical feedbacks that were extremely useful in coming up with my own chair design.
Having had a background in Fine Arts and Architecture, I have always been interested in both practical aspects of designed objects as in meeting safety standards and user-friendliness and aesthetic side of such objects be they chairs, desks, cabinets, counters, stairs or floor tiles in the bathroom that seem to elevate the spirit of the people who use them. And when they are exposed to such a stimulating environment at home and at work, they tend to be happier and come back to it time and again. This Standing Chair design was no different in trying to meet these dual objectives whether it was successful or not. And this is my way of saying that art is essential in everyday life and should not be confined to those who can appreciate and afford them. Everyone can benefit from it and they in turn could be inspired to be creative, physically active, lead healthier lifestyle and enjoy life more with those loved ones around them.