Sempoa 休闲椅 by New Elegant Co., Ltd. is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2025 A' Design Award 银奖 in 家具设计 Competition Category.

银家具· 2025

Sempoa 休闲椅

by New Elegant Co., Ltd.

Client: New Elegant Co., Ltd.

A' Design Award 银奖 Winner in 家具 Category

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Verified Award Winner
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View at A' Design Award Press Release Award Badge

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The Design

About Sempoa 休闲椅

Sempoa椅将传统灵感与现代功能完美融合。其设计灵感源于日本算盘（Soroban），椅背配有可移动的珠子，既能提供触觉互动体验，又具备柔和的按摩效果。珠子安装在不锈钢杆上，由柔性弯曲木框架固定，可随使用者的身体活动而移动。整体采用交叉实木板材精心打造，在结构美学与耐用性之间取得平衡，确保了稳定性、格调以及吸引人的互动体验。

The Recognition

About the A' Design Award 银奖

Sempoa 休闲椅是 A' Design Award 银奖得主，这是授予顶级、华美而令人印象深刻的设计的极为崇高的认可。银奖得主是极其卓越、极具创造力的作品，展现出其设计师杰出的专业技能、才华与敏锐。预计Sempoa 休闲椅将成为一件出色的典范之作，兼具非凡的专业性与深刻的创新性。这件赢得 A' Design Award 银奖的设计是一项备受瞩目、令人钦佩的发明，造福并拓展艺术、科学、设计和技术的边界。Sempoa 休闲椅是一件令人羡慕的创作，它唤起渴望，带来积极的情感，并激发惊叹与赞叹。

Behind the Design

Press Kit

Credits, team members and technical details provided by the designer.

Unique Properties: For a long period of time, Abacus has been an important part of life of businessman, employees, even students. This simple yet useful hand operated tool becomes a symbol of hardworking people. In modern days, where digital calculator has been embedded inside our most important tool-smartphone, an abacus is slowly being forgotten. An idea emerges repurposing an abacus in our daily life as a reminder of our hard works while still physically functional giving relaxation massage sensation for the user.
Dimensions & Packaging: Width: 720 mm
Depth: 820 mm
Height: 800 mm
Seat Height: 440 mm
Seat Depth: 510 mm
Tags: Chair, Life, Work, Massage, Abacus, Wood, Joinery
Production Technology: The expectation to create the most favorite piece of furniture in our living room, build quality is the priority allowing the user to rely on it for decades. With that mindset, straight solid rubberwood is decided for its well-known balance between strength, lightweight and cost. The curved shapes are realized from a bentwood forming the backrest and seat frames that wraps around the user’s body. The large area of the seat allows the user to sit cross-legged, thus velvet fabric is chosen to give a gentle touch to the skin, maximizing comforts.
Design Challenge: From the beginning of research, blending an abacus in a piece of furniture, the inorganic shape of the abacus reduces the possibility of the chair shape exploration. As ergonomic is a crucial part in designing a chair, the shape cannot be too rigid but on the other hand it becomes irrelevant to the abacus if the chair is too organic. Second hurdle is finding the balance thickness of the bentwood rails of the abacus. It must be thin enough to flex, yet strong enough to support the user’s body while holding all the stainless-steel rods. The frame also required to have spaces for the rails to slide smoothly without affecting the overall rigidity.
Research: Creating a product that will be cherished by the user is the wish of all designers and producers. Providing a solution in the product that also connects to the user’s heart, the research focused on blending the historical elements of abacus as an aesthetic feature and a concrete function of the whole product. Thus, by reinventing abacus as a flexible backrest, not only it acts as a piece of art in the living room, but also provides a soothing massage effect for the user. It combines a cultural element with practical benefits, creating a chair that feels both familiar and innovative.
Inspiration: In this era, most of our daily activity is sitting. Either it is working, meeting, eating or even relaxing. Twelve hours on average sitting on the same spot happened to many people especially those who works from their home. Inspired by wooden massage lumbar support used by many taxi drivers in Vietnam, the idea is to implement wooden massage beads built into a lounge chair for people who works tirelessly and relax infinitely in front of screens all day long.
Project Duration: The project was designed and developed in Ho Chi Minh from August 2023 until August 2024.
Operation Flow: Crafting Sempoa chair focused on touches between users’ body and the edges of the beads. Knowing the fact that responses to sharp edges are different for every person, the rails of the abacus are made of flexible thin bentwood to be able to adapt to the user’s rear body shape. The stainless-steel rods act as the bones of the bentwood rails giving strength to support the user’s weight. Not only that, the abacus horizontal direction combined with the stainless steel rods, permit the beads to slide and spin freely, allowing the user to move around unbound while sitting.
Team Members: Director: Wei-Liang Chou
Designer: Aditya Cipta Sugandha
Image Credits: Aditya Cipta Sugandha, 2024.