moopi

Abstract

As remote work becomes increasingly popular, many people are working or studying at their dinner table while seated in a chair that does not adequately support them or is not appropriately sized, leading to various physical complaints. Traditional office chairs are often big and bulky, and their design does not complement home environments. Additionally, adjusting these chairs correctly can be challenging since users often lack knowledge on how to do this and how to maintain a healthy posture.

The objective of this project is to design a parametric chair that is both simple and beautiful, using customer body characteristics to create a mass-customizable 3D printed chair. This chair should fit seamlessly into the user‘s home environment while being personalized to their body. It is essential to obtain a thorough understanding of the home office worker‘s context and the definition of a healthy posture. This ergonomic knowledge is used to convert body measurements into a bucket chair design that provides the user with support in various postures while maintaining a comfortable and healthy posture.

The first step of the project involves analyzing the context of the home office worker. This includes studying the basis of chair design, conducting market research, and studying literature and expert interviews to understand what constitutes a healthy posture and what user characteristics must be considered. The findings from this analysis are then validated through a questionnaire to gain a better understanding of the user‘s context. A chair prototype is also developed to perform various user tests and to develop the backrest shape of the chair using a variety of different back shape measuring methods. Once all the important chair parameters are identified along with their corresponding body measurements, an algorithm is developed to create a personalized bucker chair shape. The resulting chair shape is 3D printed and user-tested.

It is crucial for a chair to allow for posture variation and provide support and comfort in forward, upright, and slouching postures while maintaining a natural spine curve to promote healthy posture. Due to time constraints, the backrest and support have been prioritized in development as they are crucial factors in achieving this goal. By positioning the lumbar support at the top of the pelvis, reducing the height to the underside of the shoulder blades, and limiting the width of the chair to not extend beyond the arms, users have enough freedom of movement of the upper body while rotating the pelvis forward to maintain a natural spine shape. The backrest angle and lumbar support are crucial in achieving balance while sitting, which is also a fundamental factor for healthy posture and sitting comfortably.

The algorithm generates a functional 3D-printed prototype with all elements personalized to the body dimensions of the intended user. Future research and testing should focus on validating the backrest design, improving the body measuring method, developing the seat pan and buttock bowl, addressing the comfort aspect of the chair, and creating a customer journey for ordering the chair.