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Problem Statement
Problem Statement: individuals who work/ use their phones/ read outside tend to sit in a crooked position, which strains the back and increases back pain.
Individuals noticed: mother holding baby and phone, venture capitalist talking on his phone, student reading from a book, students reading from their phones and laptops, professors on their phones, turists on their phones.
Possible Solution: A portable, therapeutic chair useable outdoors, which enhances better back position and induces a more comfortable experience while working outdoors. More so, these chairs could be installed in a special space in Stanford, specially dedicated for working outside and being mindful about posture. Physical therapists could be present and recommend exercises for both preventing and healing back pain. The chairs will be used as instruments for these exercises.
Wander
Today I decided to visit the Cantor Arts Museum´s Rodin´s Sculpture Garden at midday. The sun was shining and there was a light breeze, which made it very favourable for people of different ages to be walking and specially, sitting all around. I started copying a statue of a crooked seated person, which I found very interesting because of its crooked posture. But then I looked up, I got distracted by the people around me: Stanford students, a financial advisor, a VC owner, a mother, proffessors, they were all sitting in similar postures than the statue I was looking at. This couldn´t be right, this couldn´t be comfortable.
All of these people who evidently care about being outside, were ruining their posture by sitting head first towards the phone or computer, lumbar section of the back crooked downwards, shoulder against the neck. All of this had to have an impact. So after copying them, I asked them: “do you have back pain?” all of the answers, except that of a young teenager were “yes”. Not only that: I realized that I, who was so concentrated on copying everyone, also was crooked, and my back also hurt. Could it be that in the heat of producing something that we consider important we stop caring about our bodies? My posture had made me have backpains in three different places: my neck, my lower back and my shoulders.
Thats when I saw the need of creating a device that would make it comfortable to change our posture, comfortable to be outside and wok, but at the same time, taking care of our backs.
This is the space in which the ever caring chair can exist: it responds to users as Martina Paz or Isma Noriktova, the russian mother who has no time or space in her stroller for a large chair that makes her sit straight. Its for people who have things to do, places to be, things to study. Its for people who don´t want to carry weight, that care about being outside, but that don´t have time to think about their posture.
The ever solving chair is a transportable chair which takes into account lumbar postures to take care of the back while sitting. It also has a manual and the capability of serving as a means for physiotherapy positions.
Taking it even further, this chair could be made out of recycled materials, and filled with a mixture of used rags from the arts department and the materials necessary for the perfect firmness. They could be tied with sailors knots in order to reduce weight and bulkiness, as well as the cost of production and therefore affordability for people like Martina and Isma, for the VC investor and for stanford sewing professors.
To make this chair ideal, I will contact my physiotherapist and see what the necessary angles are needed for a chair.
Details I noticed:
- everyone who was crooked was doing something (reading, computer, phone- ussually phone)
- People don´t know how to sit: they somehow plummet against the chair.
- The man sitting behind me and talking on the phone seemed to take his sitting in the sun time like a relaxing moment with himself and his cellphone.
- The mother had a lot of things in her hands.
- Shoulders tend to stick against face in a tense position.
- There is no leaning the lumbar section.
- It is easier to lean down towards what you are doing if there is no space to put phone or computer.
- It seems like people have leaned forward over time
The garden of the crooked postures could potentially be: the garden of the healing backs.