We had the distinct pleasure to interview award winning designer Takusei Kajitani about their original and creative Stool design work. Takusei Kajitani is an award-winning industrial designer, that makes our world a better place with their original stool works.
Takusei Kajitani ("TK") answered Design Interview ("DI") questions about their award-winning work Swing Ao Stool. Interview questions prepared by Frank Scott.
TK : Most conventional chairs are designed based on the idea that sitting is a static state, even though the human body is designed to move. Swing Ao has a tension structure that allows the seat to move freely in conjunction with the movement of the sitter's pelvis. This promotes a feeling of floating and the movement of the pelvis, spine, and surrounding muscles, activating the body's functions just like playing on a small swing.
TK : "Swing Ao" is a product design that solves a problem in life where Work From Home has become the norm because of COVID19. The design presents a solution to a private problem, lack of exercise. This is my problem, but it is also a problem that many home workers have, and I felt it necessary to design a new chair to solve this problem. That is what I want to achieve.
TK : The Swing Ao, which received the Silver award this year, has been attracting the interest of many people because of its new concept of a stool that promotes physical activation while sitting. What I want to do next is to redesign it better so that it can be offered to users at a reasonable price in order to reach many people.
TK : It took about a year to complete this work. 3 months at the concept development stage, next 3 months at the basic design stage where materials and manufacturing methods were examined and craftsmen were selected, and then 3 months at the implementation design stage where all details were fixed with collaborating with the craftsmen, and 3 months at the mockup production stage.
TK : The idea started when I started Work From Home. As I spent more and more time sitting in a chair, I had a feeling that my body was getting lazy, and as a soccer player, I was concerned that my body would continue to decline. I heard similar concerns from my teammates, and I began to think about designing a chair that would benefit them. As I read books on the human body structure, I became very interested in the importance of the human sense of balance and unconscious body manipulation. Then I began to think of designing a chair with a swinging seat.
TK : The design of Swing Ao is patented by Takusei Kajitani on 19th April in 2022. At first, I am planning to promote Swing, a stool that provides new experiential value, to many people. To do so, I am thinking of first producing and selling it myself. Of course, if there is a company interested in manufacturing and selling it, I would like to consider lending the copyright to them and consigning the production and sales to them.
TK : As Work From Home becomes the norm around the world, I am convinced that there must be many people who, like me, are anxious to spend their days sitting at their desks all day long. However, no chair exists that dispels such people's anxieties. That's why I designed Swing Ao.
TK : One day, I suddenly became strongly interested in the design of SELLA, a swinging stool with a seat made of a bicycle saddle designed by my favorite designer, Achille Castiglioni. After a few days, it occurred to me that it would be a unique stool if the bottom of the SELLA could be supported by a suspension structure, and the framework for the Swing Ao’s design was set.
TK : I am considering the target user to be all people who Work From Home and do not want to degenerate their bodies while sitting in their chairs. For example, people who enjoy sports, children who like to move a lot, people who are very interested in taking care of their bodies and health, people who sometimes use a balance ball as a chair, and many other people may need Swing Ao. I want them to experience Swing Ao for a choice.
TK : I believe that the idea of supporting a shaft rod extending from the seat with a small suspension structure has a uniqueness not found in other chairs or stools.
TK : I thought of Swing's small suspended structure of the seat as resembling a small swing, hence the name Swing. I hope it conveys the playfulness of the design. The finishing touches on this stool were completed in collaboration with the indigo-dyed woodworking team Ao which means blue in Japanese. So I have added "Ao" to the name as a sign of collaboration.
TK : I mainly used the pen tool on my iPad mini when coming up with designs. I think it is the best tool because it is easy to carry around and record the various ideas that come to me when I am on the move or in the middle of playing.
TK : I am considering it very unique because the shaft rod extending from the seat is an extension of the spine, like the tail of the person sitting on it, which allows the structure to sway freely in 360-degree directions. This allows the spine and pelvis to move at all angles, making the stool an easy way to stimulate a sense of the body balance.
TK : In the production process, I colaborated with Ryosuke Tanaka, a craftsman at the KOKKOK woodworking studio, to study the structural aspects of the product and also with Yoh Miyaji of Ao, a team specializing in indigo-dyeing woodwork, to design the finishing.
TK : The ropes of the suspension structure, which play an important role in Swing Ao, are made of high performance ropes with a load capacity of more than 400 kg per rope. This is more than enough when eight ropes support the seat, but I believe this performance is necessary to handle the unpredictable loads of swinging and moving.
TK : I effort to understand Swing's needs by researching the Work From Home migration rate of companies after the COVID19 disaster. For example, I found that in Tokyo, approximately 50% of companies have already transitioned to a Work From Home work style. The highest percentage of disadvantages for Work From Home workers is "lack of exercise". I believe that the need for Swing is thus greatly expanding.
TK : Various trials were conducted on the rope strength of Swing Ao's suspension structure. As a result, I found that it is necessary to consider not only tensile strength but also frictional strength with the rope hole, so I paid careful attention to selecting a rope that combines both performances. I also challenged what allows the user to change the seat height by adjusting the length of the rope, referring to the rope structure of the Kotsuzumi, a traditional Japanese percussion instrument whose sound is adjusted by the rope's tensile strength.
TK : With my design studio Consentable, I would like to design new furniture that adjusts to the digital lifestyle of modern people, and to propose to people around the world products made by Japanese craftsmen that reference traditional Japanese techniques and ideas. For this reason, I consider my participation in such an international competition as a necessity.
TK : I have been designing large furniture such as WT, PC tables at Consentable. This was my first designing a kind of chair, and I feel that I was able to quickly identify various points for improvement because the mock-up work was rather easy to do and because it is portable, allowing users to easily try it out. I also realized once again the importance of designing while incorporating users' opinions, not just my own.
TK : Swing Ao will be exhibited at Como in Italy in July 2022, and also at many more exhibitions in the future. I really hope that everyone will experience Swing's unique floating sensation there. Thank you very much.
