101 Theory

In the current Furniture project the main route that our group of 3 have decided to go down was Public Seating. When I say public seating I know, straight away, that probably the first thing you thought of was a bench in a park or some kind of outdoor seat. But why when public seating is suggested do our minds not think of a seat at a train station or an airport or a bench in a shopping centre?

So we decided to work on indoor seating and the principal of engagement. I’m sure you have noticed that if there is a bench with 3 seats and one person is sitting at one of the edge seats, the next person comes along and sits at the opposite edge seat. Another person comes along wanting a seat but will very rarely sit in that one remaining, middle seat. Why is this? Strangers do not want to sit beside each other; they find this kind of engagement with people they don’t know very uncomfortable and intense. I called this the 101 Theory.

This concept of how people will sit can be transferred to any public seating with any number of seats but 9 out 10 times no-one will sit directly beside someone they don’t know.

Our answer to this was to create single seats, that move to wherever you want, within a specific area, that connect to each other so that if people want to sit by themselves they can but they also have the option to connect with another seat and sit with someone, either who they already know or someone who they only just met while engaging with our seating.