How NOT to: Design Chairs

Ever wondered how to design chairs in an ecologically sustainable manner? Well you might just be sitting on a solution.

Following this simple tutorial even you can learn how NOT to design chair. This tutorial is especially handy for designers but might profe useful for other crafty people out there too.

Find a place to sit in the wilderness or if you cannot reach the wilderness just find any place to sit.

You'll notice that most household do not need chairs... If something they need to rid them selfs of some to optimize the usage of space. Designing new chairs will not help us to solve issues with the lack of space because we'll need to store the old chairs somewhere. Where will the old chairs go? You might already know that in some cultures people do not even use chairs.

Now if you are a designer you possibly have sat at a lecture about the "history of chairs" or something like this and even participated on workshops on how to make chairs. The time you spend designing new chairs has been rewarding but the time could have been spend doing something else... What was wrong with the chair you sat on when participating on these lectures?

"There is nothing wrong with the chair I am sitting on now", "I can see a lot of empty chairs around me", "There are enough chairs for everyone" you realize. Say it out loud. Realizing the amount of chairs we have renders the desire to design new vain. Do not feel guilty about the chairs you have design.. Start thinking how to maintain them. If you meet a friend who does not have a chair to sit on. You could help her/him find one. That's more then enough to provide chairs for everyone in the world.

He have a plentitude of decent chairs it the world. Most of them serve our need to sit already but to maintain this ideal it would be smart to start repairing the ones we have.

It is that simple. 

We believe that the world already has enough chairs. Designing new ones only takes time away from renovating the ones we already have. Consider this the ultimate challenge for you to rethink how sustainable design should be manifested. If not that... Then think about the amount of time you'll save when you don't have to design chairs for a year. We are challenging designers of the world to NOT design chairs in the year 2012. It's that simple. 

To show you have accepted this challenge sign up here: http://oree.storijapan.net/NCD-C . Your participation will be added to the People IN list of this site if you so choose (by default your participation will be anonymous). Five designers participating will be awarded diplomas for sustainable design.

Still not convinced? Try this video.