(no subject)
A chair... a simple device on which to sit, how complex can it become.
Then you discover that there are effectively two types of chair in the world. The reasonably simple "padded board" chairs from officeworks at about 100-300$. All made in China, all looking fairly similar and lots of reports of breakage on web-sites. This is what I sit on currently and it's starting to give some alarming creaking noises.
Then there is another world. A strange place where 1000$ and more counts as a perfectly reasonably price for a chair. Symbols of dotcom excess like the Aeron and others from mysterious brands like Sedus, teknion and steelcase. Overly engineered, lots of curving metal, tensioned mesh, cryptically arranged levers and knobs, and fancy mechanical hearts allowing things like dynamically controlled recline. Heck, for a lot of them I have no idea how much they cost because the web-sites generally ask you to e-mail them so you can find out the actual price!
They might well be comfortable, sturdy and ergonomic enough to justify that price, although I suspect they have huge profit margins since the businesses are going to write part of the cost off on tax anyway. It would certainly be interesting to have an experimental sit. After all, you can't exactly feel the comfort of a chair from a picture. Good luck being able to do so in Perth though, most of these manufacturers don't even have Australian offices or distributors, let along anything in Western Australia. When I was young and innocent I assumed that if you have the money you'd be able to buy the product you wanted. Now I'm beginning to realize what is actually available (especially in WA) is only a tiny subset.
Is there a sweet spot somewhere in the middle, that's actually available? I haven't found it yet...
Then you discover that there are effectively two types of chair in the world. The reasonably simple "padded board" chairs from officeworks at about 100-300$. All made in China, all looking fairly similar and lots of reports of breakage on web-sites. This is what I sit on currently and it's starting to give some alarming creaking noises.
Then there is another world. A strange place where 1000$ and more counts as a perfectly reasonably price for a chair. Symbols of dotcom excess like the Aeron and others from mysterious brands like Sedus, teknion and steelcase. Overly engineered, lots of curving metal, tensioned mesh, cryptically arranged levers and knobs, and fancy mechanical hearts allowing things like dynamically controlled recline. Heck, for a lot of them I have no idea how much they cost because the web-sites generally ask you to e-mail them so you can find out the actual price!
They might well be comfortable, sturdy and ergonomic enough to justify that price, although I suspect they have huge profit margins since the businesses are going to write part of the cost off on tax anyway. It would certainly be interesting to have an experimental sit. After all, you can't exactly feel the comfort of a chair from a picture. Good luck being able to do so in Perth though, most of these manufacturers don't even have Australian offices or distributors, let along anything in Western Australia. When I was young and innocent I assumed that if you have the money you'd be able to buy the product you wanted. Now I'm beginning to realize what is actually available (especially in WA) is only a tiny subset.
Is there a sweet spot somewhere in the middle, that's actually available? I haven't found it yet...