In public spaces, people don't like to sit next to each other if they don't have to. At a train station or airport you'll find people sitting as far away from each other, even though research shows that talking with strangers makes people feel happier. So we made the Chairwave, an interactive row of chairs that only opens seats next to where people sit down. In six months we went from a first sketch to a prototype. When the municipality of Amsterdam Metropolitan Area (AMA) wrote a request for ideas on how to make city squares more vibrant, we had the right match. The three main requirements were: Vandalism proof; Safe at night; A 'bezoekmotief' (reason to visit). Research: we observed for hours at a Dutch train station how people sit—not a single person sat next to a stranger. Then we numbered seats on public benches in Amsterdam and assigned seats next to others; we got strangers talking, some for over 15 minutes. Design: we opted for a linear sliding mechanism (a reference to the Zigzag chair by Rietveld) and engraved 10mm plexiglass with a dot pattern for even lighting, heat-formed using an old oven. Construction: the chairs are controlled with a Controllino (Arduino-compatible), stepper motors, and broadcast sit-down events via a Python server program. Live testing: at the Dutch Design Week, in 9 days over 8000 people sat on the Chairwave. Future: we are working towards installing dozens of chairs at a public space to see if they can get strangers to talk on a larger scale.
— Mingus Vogel
