#Lap Chair concept lets you sit cross-legged on low chair

When sitting on a regular chair, I am probably the most uncomfortable when I’m on a regular sitting posture, with feet on the ground and back against the chair. Well, since I am also vertically challenged, there are times when my feet don’t even reach the floor when I’m sitting upright. So my favorite positions are always leg crossed over the other, leg under the other leg, or crossed legs like you’re about to do yoga. However, not all chairs are built to accommodate other positions other than the knees straight back upright kind of sitting.

Designer: Chandra Prakash

Now, we have a concept for a low cross-legged seating chair called The Lap Chair. The designer’s idea is to evoke the feeling of sitting on your mother’s lap (if you ever did that when you were younger). The chair has an ergonomic form that lets you adapt different positions when sitting on it, including various cross-legged positions. It also has a minimalist design, focusing more on the functionality and the comfort and warmth that you would want from a chair. They did a 30 minute sitting session study to see what are the common postures we take when sitting and adapted this to their concept.

For the prototype, they used flexy plywood with melamine coating and MS pipe for the legs. The chair is lower than most of the chairs we see around and also has a wider backrest and seat to accommodate our legs when we’re doing our comfortable cross-legged pose. It has an ergonomic back support that is designed for optimal spinal alignment. The wide seat is spacious enough for when you’re working, reading, or relaxing, and you can even put some stuff beside you if you’re not going full cross-legged. It is also gently curved so it can adapt to your different sitting styles.

Now if you want to sit “regularly”, I don’t know how a low chair can make you that comfortable, especially if you’re a tall person. So the assumption is that if you get this chair, you’re the kind of person (like me) who’s more likely to sit cross-legged and other non-regular positions. If this gets made into an actual consumer chair, I would probably be one of the people who would line up to get this and sit to my heart’s content.