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Office
Chairs
 If
the chair fits...
The old adage, "People come in all shapes and sizes," is a tired
cliche to a lot of people. To those who design and manufacture office
chairs, it's a daily reminder of the difficult task they face: making
chairs that fit a tremendously varied population. Walk through the
offices of just about any company and you'll see people of vastly
different sizes and proportions. You will notice diminutive workers
whose feet barely touch the floor, as well as lanky colleagues with
knees awkwardly extended well beyond the front edge of their chairs.
A chair that fits is one that allows the user to comfortably
rest his or her feet on the floor, with the thighs fully supported
and approximately parallel to the floor. The user's back should be
comfortably supported, and the angle formed by the thighs and the torso
should be between roughly 90 and 105 degrees. Tilting back should be
easy, but not too easy. And the chair should permit frequent posture
changes - an essential element of comfortable sitting.
Such a chair
certainly would be astonishingly comprehensive and all-inclusive, for
human beings are of shapes and sizes as varied and individualistic
as fingerprints. A single chair that fits all people is indeed as unrealized
as one answer to fit all questions. As long as chairs continue to reflect
human beings who use them, variety will reign. |
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