APPROACH CHAIR

2012

“When a ‘chair’ first hits the world it is immediately categorised by the consumer to serve a specific purpose. This subconscious approach is due to a visual understanding of how we are meant to approach, sit and converse while being supported by a ‘chair’. Factors including its shape, size, materiality, visual comfort and its own surroundings, (be them a multiple of itself or environmental) all influence the categorisation. This assumption allows the designer to directly design for a certain space or environment through the pre conceived notions that the public have provided – often unknowingly”.

Andrew Watts - Honours Thesis

The Approach Chair was the result of a year long university honours research year conducted at The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.

Many terms are used to portray particular classes of seating platforms based on the length of time a user engages with it. These range from the ‘5 minute chair’ up to an ‘8 hour chair’. It is an understandable mechanism of classification, which categorises the intended uses of various seating arrangements. Each particular category evokes an array of emotions from each individual user when placed into an environment that corners their sense of emotion, understanding, and physical interaction towards that object or ‘chair’.

The aim of this investigation was to characterise an array of seating platforms through an artistic audit. The investigation and research will be demonstrated through the different examples of seating platforms that best suit my intended process. Further investigation were then be given to one individual style, which included form, behaviour, function, interaction, feelings and historical precedents.

PHOTOGRAPHER @WHITE_CHARLIE