“Sitting” in comfort?
Note to the reader:
Sitting is something we all do. We all know how to do it. It’s not a hard thing to do or learn.
When I was younger I struggled sitting down for a longer time. My kindergarten teacher told my parents that this seemed problematic to them. So I had to sit still for an hour at a doctor who specialised in kids with similar behaviours. I didn’t really think about this after. It is only in the last few years that my interest has more and more
shifted to body movement and understanding how and why my body does and feels like doing certain movements.
Sitting was the first body movement I was educated with and since then has always been there. I do really like sitting, especially after a long day of running around, but I also feel that most things we do daily are way too shaped around the typical sitting on a chair.
With this essay, I want to try to understand why sitting is so intertwined with our lives and how we end up spending so much time of our day seated on a chair.
Sitting is something we all do. We all know how to do it. It’s not a hard thing to do or learn.
When I was younger I struggled sitting down for a longer time. My kindergarten teacher told my parents that this seemed problematic to them. So I had to sit still for an hour at a doctor who specialised in kids with similar behaviours. I didn’t really think about this after. It is only in the last few years that my interest has more and more
shifted to body movement and understanding how and why my body does and feels like doing certain movements.
Sitting was the first body movement I was educated with and since then has always been there. I do really like sitting, especially after a long day of running around, but I also feel that most things we do daily are way too shaped around the typical sitting on a chair.
With this essay, I want to try to understand why sitting is so intertwined with our lives and how we end up spending so much time of our day seated on a chair.
In today’s society, chairs are the most popular tool
providing our seated comfort and functionality
across diverse settings. The widespread use of
chairs as the main seating choice in workspaces,
public spaces, social gatherings, and cultural traditions highlights their importance in our daily
lives. This chair-centrism is evident through the
infrastructure, cultural practices,
and ergonomics emphasis, which all highlight the great impact and centrality of chairs in accommodating our need for seated comfort and convenience in various aspects of modern living. However, this dependence on chairs has led to a sedentary lifestyle, resulting in negative health effects. Prolonged sitting, like we averagely do, is associated with increased risks of immobility, body pain, and other health issues.
In this essay, I want to critically look at the relationship we humans have with chairs. Is the typical chair as we know and use it, really providing comfort for our bodies? Or is it rather an illusion of comfort?
and ergonomics emphasis, which all highlight the great impact and centrality of chairs in accommodating our need for seated comfort and convenience in various aspects of modern living. However, this dependence on chairs has led to a sedentary lifestyle, resulting in negative health effects. Prolonged sitting, like we averagely do, is associated with increased risks of immobility, body pain, and other health issues.
In this essay, I want to critically look at the relationship we humans have with chairs. Is the typical chair as we know and use it, really providing comfort for our bodies? Or is it rather an illusion of comfort?
As humans that move around and exhaust the body
we need rest, and chairs provide this rest. Especially
before industrialization when the human body was
used for physical labour at work resting the body
was crucial. During industrialization, the production steps that were still done by hand were often
done seated on a chair, for more efficiency. Once
the chair became intertwined with our working
routine, it stayed intertwined with it until this day.
“Sitting” transformed into a gesture that requires
no additional context or explanation regarding its
where and how. Therefore, it may seem unnecessary to explicitly mention the chair, as being “seated” typically implies sitting on one. I am actively
referring to the chair to counter and question Western societies ' normative understanding of “sitting”.
The level of chair-centricity varies in some regions due to different cultural
and historical preferences. In Japan for example the traditional seating technique of “Seiza”, with the feet placed under the buttocks, is a “matter of common sense with no need of explanation”.(Tazaki, 2012) The sitting posture on
chairs in Western culture is comparable with “Seiza” in Japan.
It is important to understand that “sitting”, as we have normalized it b over the last hundreds of years is not as instinctive and supportive for the body
as we may assume. If you have ever analyzed your colleagues, friends or even your own posture when sitting, you may have noticed that it is continuously changing. It is unnatural for our bodies to stay put in the same position for a long period of time. Our muscles are designed for dynamic movements and get tired more quickly when holding static postures. (Opsvik, 2008)
It is important to understand that “sitting”, as we have normalized it b over the last hundreds of years is not as instinctive and supportive for the body
as we may assume. If you have ever analyzed your colleagues, friends or even your own posture when sitting, you may have noticed that it is continuously changing. It is unnatural for our bodies to stay put in the same position for a long period of time. Our muscles are designed for dynamic movements and get tired more quickly when holding static postures. (Opsvik, 2008)
The example of the “Wilkhahn AT. 187 range.”
office chair with a free-to-move concept shows the
direction chair design is shifting towards. The focus
when designing office chairs shifted from improving the static sitting posture towards understanding
that our bodies need movement. Wilkhahn mentions that all experts agree on how our muscles,
bones, joints, cardiovascular and digestive systems,
our ability to combat stress and powers of concentration depend on movement. (AT. 187 range.,
2023)
Peter Opsvik’s design practice evolves all around freedom of movement. He created the kneeling chair “Variable” in 1979. The seating object counters our usual sitting posture on chairs. Through its alternative shape, the weight of the seated person is distributed on the “chair” in an inconvenient and explorative way. The body has more general freedom of movement and a more active posture. (Opsvik)
Peter Opsvik’s design practice evolves all around freedom of movement. He created the kneeling chair “Variable” in 1979. The seating object counters our usual sitting posture on chairs. Through its alternative shape, the weight of the seated person is distributed on the “chair” in an inconvenient and explorative way. The body has more general freedom of movement and a more active posture. (Opsvik)
Even though both chairs were designed to improve our standardized sitting gesture, they are not about improving the comfort of our bodies. Instead, we designed our chairs to improve human efficiency, we started treating our bodies more like machines rather than living organisms that need to listen to and understand their own signals and needs. “Sitting” is more than a posture we hold, it is a gesture that is heavily incorporated into our lives. Designing chairs is either about the look or the efficiency it can provide for the human body to work as hard as possible.
Instead of continuing to treat our bodies like machines, we start understanding what our bodies really need and crave. It shouldn’t be about being just comfortable enough to be as efficient as possible. We should ask ourselves how we actually want to move with and without a chair.
Can “sitting” be something we can enjoy again? Just out of comfort? And can we shift the idea of sitting into something that is more connected to our natural movement? Is there a future where our modern work lives go hand in hand with healthy movement?
Sources:
Bibliography:
-
Opsvik, Peter. Rethinking sitting. Gaidaros Forlag, 2008.
-
Morley, John. The History of Furniture: Twenty-Five
Centuries of Style and Design in the Western Tradition.
1999.
-
Tazaki, Yusei. “205 HISTORICAL STUDY OF SITTING
IN JAPAN: WITH “SEIZA” AS MAIN TOPIC.”Ar- chi-Cultural Translations through the Silk Road, edited by iaSU2012 JAPAN
Publication Committee, Mukogawa Women’s University Press, 2012, pp. 87-92. -
AT. 187 range. Wilkening + Hahne GmbH+Co.KG,
2023. https://wilkhahncom-2f42.kxcdn.com/fileadmin/
user_upload/Wilkhahn-AT-187-Digital-brochure.pdf
- “VariableTM.” Peter Opsvik, www.opsvik.no/works/in- dustrial-design/variabletm.
Bibliography:
-
Opsvik, Peter. Rethinking sitting. Gaidaros Forlag, 2008.
-
Eickhoff, Hajo. De cultuur van het zitten op stoelen.
2005.
-
Morley, John. The History of Furniture: Twenty-Five
Centuries of Style and Design in the Western Tradition.
1999.
-
Tazaki, Yusei. “205 HISTORICAL STUDY OF SITTING
IN JAPAN: WITH “SEIZA” AS MAIN TOPIC.”Ar- chi-Cultural Translations through the Silk Road, edited by iaSU2012 JAPAN Publication Committee, Mukogawa Women’s University Press, 2012, pp. 87-92.
-
Hennessey, James, and Victor J. Papanek. Nomadic
Furniture: How to Build and Where to Buy Lightweight
Furniture That Folds, Collapses, Stacks, Knocks-down,
Inflates or Can Be
Thrown Away and Re-cycled: Being Both a Book of Instruction and a Catalog of Access for Easy Moving. 1973.
-
SEVERAL SEATS: The Chairs of Peter Opsvik. archive.
pinupmagazine.org/articles/pinup-board-chair-design-
er-peter-opsvik.
-
Krogman, Wilton Marion. : “The Measure of Man:
Human Factors in Design . Henry Dreyfuss.” American
Anthropologist, vol. 63, no. 4, Wiley, Aug. 1961, p. 884.
https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1961.63.4.02a00500.