One Chair's "World View"-Side Comment on the Third "Anji Chair Industry Cup" International Seat Design Awards

On October 25, the "Anji Chair Industry Cup" International Seating Design Competition ushered in the final evaluation. In more than a year, 13 pieces were carefully selected from more than 2,400 overseas works, and international interior and product design masters, university professors, and JD e-commerce executives were selected. These chairs represent the frontier of wisdom and demand for the design of the chair industry and showcase the "worldview" of a chair.

As the hometown of China's chair industry, after more than 30 years of chair industry from scratch, from weak to strong, Anji is now qualified to shout "Let the world fall in love with Anji". Exactly, the theme of this competition is "sit and enjoy the world". This international design event was taken for granted in Anji, and it also made the frontier collide with the frontier, bringing more thoughts about chairs.

Gathering platform for chair industry intelligence

Through the contest, spread innovative seats and grasp the trend of seat design; inspire the enthusiasm of designers to reflect the value and achievements of designers; and inspire and enhance the industry product design concepts and levels. Held for three consecutive years, the "Anji Chair Industry Cup" International Competition has become a professional design competition in the industry and has received wide attention and recognition.

Harvard University, Taiwan Practice University, Tsinghua University ... More than 300 domestic and foreign universities and teachers participated; Per Erik Bjornsen, an internationally renowned architect and planner, professor of architecture at Tongji University, professor of Nanlin University School of Furniture and Industrial Design, Shenzhen Furniture Research Xu Baiming, President of Development Academy, Zhao Jing, General Manager of Furniture Department of Jingdong Fashion Home Platform Business Group ... one by one in the industry joined the expert jury to establish an international style for this event.

"The chair industry is Anji's tradition, pillar and advantageous industry. Anji chair industry has become a complete supporting industry cluster with clear division of labor and has a pivotal international influence on the chair industry. Facing the new form of economic development and new challenges, we hope to adopt The contest showcases the image of Anji chair industry, and also wants to listen to the design voices of foreign designers and companies, and promote the development of the industry with international thinking. "Fu Haifei, deputy director of the County Economic and Information Bureau said.

"People always have to sit down." For a chair, no matter whether it is produced in a large or small business, whether it is a large brand or a small brand, it is ultimately aimed at global customers, which determines whether it can be widely recognized by the market The most important factors that make it a "explosion" are whether the chair is comfortable, the design is scientific, and the quality is high. Meeting these factors requires both creative ideas and the ability to turn ideas into products. Therefore, this competition has two major groups: colleges and universities. Relatively speaking, colleges are more innovative, and professional groups are focusing on the current "pain points" of the market to develop designs.

As the bronze medal winner of the contest, Lu Hengfeng, a student of the Center for American Art and Design, hopes to integrate western design concepts into traditional Chinese elements to create distinctive, Chinese-style products. The chair he brought was called "Bamboo memory". The hand rest and support feet of the chair are made of bamboo. The main structure of the chair, such as the back and seat, is made of sponge and polyester. The overall feel is like a traditional bamboo rattan rocking chair and sofa. Integration.

"Incorporating bamboo and wood into chairs is a common occurrence in current industrial design. The most representative is IKEA, with a simple and smooth shape, which is a 'fast food' chair that meets mass consumption; and I hope to bring back people's memories The memories of childhood and ancestors playing, can make foreign customers see at a glance that this is a seat with rich Chinese elements, and meet the modern people's living habits in terms of product functions. "Lu Hengfeng believes that the" world view "of a chair, It is not the only solution to make the chair fit everywhere. Such seats are numerous and difficult to have a competitive advantage. The "world view" requires product tolerance and cultural comparison of differences. It depends on product design to reflect reasonable differentiation, so that To achieve the effect of meeting market needs and expressing their own design requirements.

Creative stage for office chairs

If the chair industry is the pillar product of Anji, then the office chair is the pillar of Anji chair industry. This is not an example. From the perspective of the major chair industry clusters worldwide, the research and development and production of office chairs account for a considerable proportion of the output value of each cluster of the chair industry. Among the works awarded in this competition, five office chair series have been provided, providing a seat solution for today's fast-paced, high-intensity office life.

Koranstudent Jeon Jun-young has just graduated from Tsinghua University, and his first design work after graduation aimed at the office chair with the highest market demand and the industry's most concerned designers. To his surprise, his work won a gold medal in the college group.

What kind of seat is this? The connection between the seat surface and the support rod is changed from a mechanical connection to a magnetic suspension, which makes it easier to adjust the sitting position and effectively reduces the pressure on the hips and waist. An intelligent system has been added to record the sitting position data and shaking leg data of the human body to the mobile APP. Allow users to grasp the health of their chairs in real time ... "The functional structure is very novel. Magnetic levitation technology gives new inspiration to reduce manual adjustment of seats and improve comfort, but to strengthen practical demonstration." Jury Per Erik Bjornsen commented.

The user group for office chairs is mainly the "white-collar" company. In their working life, they not only have to work at their desks, they also often rely on chairs to solve their lunch breaks. However, ordinary office chairs on the market have limitations due to their functions and structures. It is difficult to meet this demand. Some works in this competition paid attention to this "pain point", and developed products suitable for lunch breaks.

Shen Jiabin is a designer of Hangzhou Cultural and Creative Co., Ltd. The work he brings is called "Knee Guard". "We mainly solve the problem of knee protection for users in air-conditioned rooms in summer and in winter." He said that the data shows that there are hundreds of millions of patients with arthritis in our country. The protection of knees, especially the temperature This is especially important at lower levels.

Based on this demand, Shen Jiabin provided a protruding mesh structure at the knee part of the seat corresponding to the human body sitting, which can wrap the knee of a person. "After the power is applied, the mesh can generate heat and play a role in preventing and alleviating knee arthritis. Although this technology is more common on electric blankets and hand warmers, office chairs on the market have not yet appeared; through this structure Innovations in this can make the office chair more 'temperature' and solve some office health problems. "Shen Jiabin said.

Yongyi Furniture, which has been devoted to the design and manufacture of office chairs for a long time, has also brought a "healthy ergonomic chair for lunch and rest". Jin Minghua, director of the company's research institute, introduced that the staff of Yongyi's research office has been taking lunch breaks for many years and has formed Picasso and other related products. The works brought by this time want to further satisfy the market segments on the basis of the original.

"The seat is a comfortable lifting tool. We have studied different occupation types and found that IT workers cannot feel the comfort of the seat because they have been sitting for a long time and cannot get the effective back support of the seat." Jin Minghua and others took this issue as a research topic, while retaining the traditional devices such as the office chair stretching footrest, and developing a chassis with a larger inclination angle to better fit the IT staff's office and lunch break postures.

It is worth mentioning that the "little noon break" adopts modular development and design, that is, relying on Yongyi's hand rest, footrest, net surface and other components to achieve standardization advantages. It can choose different colors and fabric components to freely combine and arrange hundreds. Thousands of subdivision design schemes. "Let order users choose different products, create their own comfortable office space, and improve the productivity of enterprises. This is why we are modularizing office chairs. This will also become the global design and development of office chairs trend." Jin Minghua Means.

Discover the communication front station

Product segmentation, and then achieve functional improvements to meet different consumer groups. This kind of product development idea is applicable to all industrial products, and it is also applicable to chairs. The "world view" of a chair needs to be recognized by all kinds of people.

Aswe all know, children are hyperactive and have high requirements for product safety, especially in special scenarios such as in the car. Ordinary seats are not suitable. People with disabilities have special requirements for the functional structure of seats due to defects in human body structure. Ordinary seats It is also difficult to satisfy. In this competition, designers from all sides discovered these needs and exchanged their design results.

The gold medal work of the professional group-child safety seat, is a seat tailored for children in the car space. This product is mainly aimed at children aged 0-12, and subdivides all ages to develop targeted functions. For example, for children aged 0-4, the product can be adjusted to the inclination of the baby's basket to enhance the comfort of the child's sitting; for older children, it can be adjusted to the inclination that is basically the same as that of the adult seat.

"When developing this product, we also obtained an invention patent. This product is set with a one-key rotation function, which can be freely rotated 0-360 degrees around the fixed axis of the product's connected car seat, which is good Realized the function of parents adjusting the seat while holding the child to help the child to sit. "Li Keqi, designer of child safety seats, introduced.

Coincidentally, Lu Feilong, a student of Changsha Normal University, found that the disabled and the elderly had inconvenience in using the toilet. He also wanted to propose a solution for this group of people through his own product, the accessible smart walking chair.

"It is obviously inconvenient for the elderly and disabled people to get up from the wheelchair. However, from the production rules of industrial products, we know that the height and other specifications of the toilet are basically the same. If the bottom of the wheelchair can be hollowed out, the hips should be hollowed out. The area covers the toilet, so that users do not have to get up and go to the toilet. "Lu Feilong introduced that the barrier-free intelligent walking chair has an opening device corresponding to the hip position, and through the intelligent system, it can realize free switching between walking and toileting.

"Design is the soul of the product and the source of power to promote the transformation and upgrading of the industry. The works of this competition are creative and innovative, expanding the boundaries and connectivity of the industry. In the process of participating in the evaluation, we also saw seats that solve children's sitting postures and storage. The pocket chair with a good combination of space and even a portable folding and deformable beach chair suggest that the development of the chair industry is infinite. "Ma Zhixiang, Executive Director and Secretary General of Zhejiang Furniture Industry Association believes that through the competition, Anji is The world chair industry taps more and better chair design ideas, so that a chair gradually forms a 'world view'.