Newcastle Station Clock

Newcastle Station Clock

Friday 11 March 2011

The Kofi Shift Notes: The second most fun item in the studio


The office chair is definitely the second most fun object in any studio; no studio is complete without a chair on castors to spin those idle minutes when the flow of ideas clots well before leaving the imagination.










A brief delve into the long and colourful history of the office chair reveals many delightful tibbets of throw away knowledge.
Some say that it all began with the Centripetal Spring Armchair in 1849 designed by Thomas E. Warren in New York (note 1). Others, including myself, argue it was the great Charles Darwin of naturalist fame who conceived the office chair, adding wheels to the chair at his desk allowing him to glide from specimen cabinet to specimen cabinet (note 2). The chair boomed with the industrial revolution allowing people to fly across offices from desk to filling cabinet to printing press without the need to stand. It might be arguable that the office chair is the major factor responsible for the Industrial Revolution itself.

This leads us to today, where a huge global population furnish offices and studios alike. Allowing designers to spin away their frustration and pass the long hours with highly organised races. A whole range of races are possible from the classic circuit to drag races and the more adventurous off-road rally. Spinning whilst short of ideas must surely help as it only logically follows that the revolution of the body placed upon the spinning chair will result in centrifugal force extracting ideas from the imagination centre of the brain and causing them to fly outwards and onto paper.

The future of office chairs remains as mysterious and misty as its origins, but it remains safe to say that within the next 50 years, maybe the next 20, that office chairs will be able to drive themselves using power created from on-board nuclear fusion engines, whilst the executive models will forgo wheels all together and fly across the design studio. It is truly a wonderful age to be sitting in.

Note 1. See: BA Business Life
Note 2. See: Wikipedia: Office Chair



The Kofi Shift Notes are written during a Kofi Bar shift in the space of a hour and under the heavy influence of caffeine, whilst it starts with what may be a sound fact, the resulting rambles are probably best ignored for any real truth.

2 comments:

  1. A shift note will allow you to enter the exact point in time during which the event occurred. A shift note should be created with reference to a work center, a hierarchy, or a PI resource. You can use Orapex to create shift notes. Orapex is the best online-based scheduling software that will allow you to create a shift note easily.

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