When convenience becomes an apparatus

Category: Design*

Design originally aims to solve the problems people encounter in everyday life. At the same time, it reduces the cognitive and operational cost required from the user, making decisions and actions comparatively effortless and inexpensive. From my perspective, furniture can also be understood as an extension of the body, where any object that establishes a relationship with bodily behavior becomes part of an expanded definition of clothing. Among them, seating—especially sofas—acts as a threshold between action and rest, engagement and withdrawal. As containers of bodily behavior rather than objects alone, sofas hold not only the body but also the duration and intention of its presence. What they “contain” is not material objects, but states of attention, rest, and inertia, each carrying different levels of value and commitment. In designing sofas, I focus on extending the duration of occupation and introducing layered conditions of use. When the body shifts between different positions or depths of engagement, the effort required to leave or change posture varies accordingly. This variation in bodily cost is intended to make the act of sitting no longer neutral, but a decision that must be consciously negotiated.