The Poetics of Seating Forms and Sitting Patterns

Seating forms, as indicated in multiple types of chairs, stools, and benches, are considered historical artifacts manifesting the evolution of styles across time. They significantly reflect the quality of assimilation between cultures achieved through migration of people, colonization of societies and the progressive development of contemporary design thinking and manufacturing processes. In a recent design exploration of repurposed chairs by Istituto Marangoni Miami interior design students, the period confluence theme attracted the greatest number of creative iterations, followed by the material rapture design interventions.

The Body and Mind System with the Experience of Sitting

The premise of this thematic inquiry evolved from my earlier studies on the East-West collective view of sitting patterns. The plethora of experimentations at various places associated with design studio works, professional practice reviews, furniture design competition projects, and open house creative workshops on chairs reveal many facets of people’s experience of sitting. Galen Cranz in a 1998 publication of The Chair shares that ‘the chair offers a glimpse into our collective ideas about status and honor, comfort and order, beauty and efficiency, and discipline and relaxation.

The intimate relation with the chair we use construes that the physical aspect and experience of sitting is bound by a body and mind system. This system expresses a relationship which stems from the interactions of anthropometric dimensions, posture, movement of the body, emotion, self-concept, and cultural values. A chair touches our whole body and yet its physical and psychological effects on us remain undervalued. Did you ever wonder in which chair do you normally rest your feet on the floor, relax your shoulders, or where your back does not comfortably meet the backrest? The improvement of one’s posture can be achieved from a proper sitting position. Studies evidently show that the best sitting position is the triadic relationship of the person’s height, chair type, and the task they need to achieve while sitting.

Seating Typologies, Sitting Patterns and Geo-Demographic Attitudes

As mentioned earlier, the functional features, use of materials, decorative treatments, and placement of seating forms in the interior space are driven by cultural differences. In our design development and practice-based design inquiry of human ergonomics and anthropometrics, we can correlate cultural multiplicities and the intellectual thought of sitting experiences from the east and the west collectives. Over time, the various layers of design process and outcomes by students have led to the discovery and identification of:

• Seating typologies fall within the furniture design lexicon clusters.
• Diverse measurement standards must conform to human heights and body frames.
• Decorative styles and functional features, which can also be attributed to the synchronic design development in various cultures.

Even the variances in habitat spaces around the world define what type of chairs will strongly dictate the market. In our extended assessment, we should also attempt to primarily connect seating typologies, sitting patterns, and geo-demographic attitudes of the consumer. Furniture design is driven by evidence-based research. We must continuously practice the contextual analysis of product value assessment before creating or introducing a new collection. Design students learn to review the following measures:

• Assess the seating typologies within the furniture design lexicon in relation to semiotic studies.
• Review seating forms in relation to the hierarchy of needs and human patterns of interaction prevalent in sociopetal and sociofugal types of furniture planning for the global market. 
• Evaluate the typologies and patterns linked to specific psychographic and lifestyle clusters.

Strategic Methods for Marketing and Design

Multiple methodologies are evidently used in every market and design investigation, which can include the furniture design lexicon, criteria matrix, and market segmentation.

• Furniture Design Lexicon – This is a visual classification of forms and patterns such as modular or sectional, angular or curvilinear, etc. The design lexicon study clearly shows that seating features and functional attributions within the global furniture market significantly overlap within the seven clusters of forms, spatial configuration, typological order, human body support, activities, defining spaces and social use. It has always been discernible that seating typologies portray the strongest relation with defining space and prescribed social use. We should note that seating forms are not just objects of commodity with implied aesthetic, practical and functional concerns, they construe the quality of experience that we desire to express in any interior environment.
• Checklist Matrix, which is the systematic analysis and clustering of information related to typologies, price points, quality of materials used, etc. It is also interpreted that the checklist matrix of seating forms also presented the connection with the buyer’s expression and consciousness that connotes to one’s sense of status and identity, sense of pride and self-confidence, and sense of security and belongingness.
• Market Segmentation is another approach to define the buying styles and preferences of the consumer based on geo-demographic and lifestyle clusters. Visual Mapping is a form of interpretative approach in design-oriented inquiries. The geo-demographic study appropriates the various psychographic and lifestyle clusters reflecting the respective characteristics and buying attitudes of cluster markets. Psychographic cluster profiles combine the demographics of age and income with the buying attitudes of the consumer.  To illustrate this, a sectional furniture which can cost as much as $20,000 extends an informational index to social strata, family profiles and incomes, sense of place in urban or suburban neighborhoods, and cultural multiplicity.

The Dominant Psychographic and Lifestyle Clusters

Previous studies in the US show that ‘cluster distribution associated to furniture’ as: Affluent Suburbia, Upscale America, Metro Fringe American Diversity, Aspiring Contemporaries, Urban Essence, and Varying Lifestyles to name a few. In the visual-mapping of images, the most common psychographic clusters associated in the US furniture market are identified as: Affluent Suburbia, Upscale America, and Aspiring Contemporaries.

On the other hand, lifestyle cluster examines the individual buying attitudes of a consumer and are grouped as: Style Awarers, Prestige Seekers, Self-Possessed, Followers, Just Me’s, Comfort Seekers, Frugal Dwellers, among many others. In the lifestyle category, the furniture images that are flooding the market relate most commonly to: Style Aware – trendy and stylish choices, Self-Possessed – reflects a high sense of well-being and an adherence to the belief that function is as important as style, and Prestige Seekers – status seekers who are adapting trends but not trend-setters.

Final Thoughts

This brief examination is useful for furniture designers and market analysts who need to contextually define and develop their product lines within the matrix of functional types, health-giving patterns of seating, placement in the interior space, and strong reference to specific market niches.  More than anything else, creative designers must return to the poetics of seating forms and sitting patterns and reimagine our pursuit of pleasurable comfort, engaged interaction and sensorial experience within built environments.