Tandem Triarc Airport Seating
Tandem Triarc Airport Seating
Travel around the east coast for years gifted me a deep connection with the lifestyle of air travel. Coincidently, two months ago, professor Tony Kawanari passed me this piece of brief about this competition seeking a solution for the next generation airport chair. I certainly won't miss this chance, because a designer cannot expect more than designing life the one lives.
Finding the seating dynamics
How to Sleep in Airports by James Gurney
I started paying attention about how people sit at the airport although not as great as the James Gurney sketched (shown above). Interestingly, I found the same postures. People do not merely seat uptight on the chair, on the contrary, they lean, lie, recline, make themselves at home on the piece that is designed to fit in a grid. There is a gap between how the chairs are expected to be used and how it is actually used.
Seating dynamics of an Airport Lounge posed by myself
Borrowing the lens of myself
During that 2-year period, I mostly travel by myself as I was on my way to meet the better half. In most cases, there was no one seating next to me regardless how crowded space was. Given no companion, privacy is the key to make the journey a bit smoother and less exhausting. However, the grid layout would not offer too much as others might sit practically in front of me, face to face. My moment of truth when looking for seats is when an island is presented.
Looking at people travel by group, I figured that they normally form an exclusive circle, sometimes the circle even block traffics. The grid layout is not forgiving on that either, especially on long rows that have no other outlets than the two ends, which makes many seats in accessible. And it is not the travelers whom to blame. It is worse when boarding begins, the layout will simply push out the waiting line to the concourse as it is not permeable for traffic, just like highways at rush hours.
Pedestrian flow analysis from Sensors study pedestrian flow in Lausanne train station - by Jean-Philippe Thiran
For single travelers, my goal in the new design is to create more islands for them to enjoy themselves. As for group travelers, I aimed to accommodate their needs of exclusiveness while not blocking aisles, in other word, to make the waiting area more permeable to traffics.
Ideation sketches using different mediums. Most sketches were created on iPad-Pro during lay-over at airports.
Final Design
3D models were created in Rhinoceros and rendered using Keyshot with Adobe Photoshop after touch.
