June 17, 2010
In
Industrial Design
IDEO and Steelcase Unveils Schooldesk of the Future
Steelcase, together with IDEO, has launched the Node Chair, an awesome seating solution that either solves or fulfills a number of needs found in a common school environment.
These issues, include flexible arrangements for lab or collaborative type learning, mobility, comfort (looks like lefties or right will sit well) and utility for storage of bags.
This product is a great example of what user centered innovation can do for you. Hang on, was it not dead?
Via: Fast Company and The Contemporist.
DT
June 18, 2010 at 10:59 amGuys, thanks for the feedback.
What about the phenomenon, that people tend to take to take care of things they like? It has been proven with public part furniture, if memory serves.
shane
June 17, 2010 at 4:53 pmit’s nice, but i have to say that looks very flimsy. In my experience school furniture needs to be bullet-proof. I look at that and struggle to see ANY part that wont be broken by the end of the 1st year.
I think we all know what a bunch of students are going to do with chairs on wheels…
I completely agree with Gwen, video tape some students with these and go back to square one.
gwen
June 17, 2010 at 1:55 pmLOL. wow. i really am lost for words. I am not sure if my thinking about the furniture design is negative or even positive or i am just getting more analytical due to the job i am currently doing.
so i just have a ton of questions really.
1) is this for america and which grade level? – based on the pictures (middle school/high school) american children are so diversity in height and weight, if i was in school again and had to sit in that chair, it would be painful, not that i was overweight (which a lot of kids are) but i was tall for my age. Also what the heck am i going to do with my long legs! there was a reason why kids love to push chairs and desks together – they were creatively making their own comfortable seat.
2) kids are A.D.D. these days: I am force into one position in that chair – kids like to sit on the table part of the desk, can’t do it, they like to sit sideways, can’t do that either, or the classic 80s thing sitting backwards.
I want to understand how does this making learning more productive?
how does this make ‘better’ teachers?
where is the connection with technological learning devices that education systems are saying that will revolutionized how we teach kids?
How does this furniture help students to think/solve problems ‘outside of the box’? ( i miss very big table surfaces cause it allow me to see my problem by spreading all my notes around me and think about a problem.)
How does this furniture bridges a student from the educational world into the professional world? (currently my desk surface is 5 times bigger than that table surface. I think after 12 years of schooling will change how a kid interprets/process information based upon the size of his/her desk surface space.)
I will say one thing… i want to give a classroom set to an inner city school and video tape what teenagers would do with them…. that would be educational and may even shock the designers.
Rizki Harit
June 17, 2010 at 9:29 amI do think user centered innovation is dead. This chair just a mere styling.
Shang Lee
June 17, 2010 at 2:02 amNice! Maybe it has a docking station that serves as a locker as well for when you leave school for the day? 🙂