Pub Chair is project about developing a queer design approach around transforming and ‘queering’ a traditional pub chair to evaluate its impact in queering a 'masculine' associated public space.
The chair through concepts of transformation and disruption, distorts the ordinary dimensions and materials of common pub chairs and through its seating design, encourages cross-legged sitting which isn’t usually associated with masculinity nor can easily be observed in masculine spaces.
The project explores the value of having a queer design approach and questions: When an object through its form and design is non-conforming, does it help bring a sense of belonging to a queer person feeling like they’re non- conforming as well?
Conforming or non-conforming are human attributes, when an inanimate object is non-conforming as well, does it make the human feel like they aren’t the only thing standing out in a space, therefore make them feel like they belong there more?
A queer design approach’s potential to increase queer
visibility and inclusivity is tested through putting the chair in pubs and doing primary research by observing people’s interactions with the chair and doing interviews to gather data.
Found wooden chair, mild steel
Alongside transforming regular parts of traditional pub chairs, the chair also features a protruding bit attached to its seat to discomfort one leg and to physically encourage a cross-legged position.
Transformation
The transformative aspect comes from the background of the term queer. Queer is a reclaimed word, once was derogatory but was reclaimed by the community as a positive word later on. It is transformative in that sense. The community didn’t come up with a completely new term with a positive meaning to represent themselves, instead reclaimed and transformed the already existing word. The same approach can be applied to the pub chair. I’m reclaiming the pub chair and transforming it, not completely rejecting its design. Keeping the original elements, altering some and adding onto it is transformative and queer.
Almost all pub chairs are made from wood and have very similar proportions, exaggerating certain dimensions and replacing parts of it with a material that has opposite qualities like metal can be disruptive
to that space. The change of the sizes and the material means the rejection of the canon of their design and not conform, therefore makes it queer. Another key disruptive element of the design is the way the seating and its off-balanced nature encourages a cross-legged
sitting which is still not commonly practiced by most cis heterosexual men. Putting people in that position is disruptive to the natural state of the space.
Disruption
The original chair before altering.
Observations of multiple pub chairs and common dimensions.
Scaled model form explorations and the making of the chair.
The chair was put in multiple pub setting and observed without intervention.
It started conversations in the pub and some users engaged in cross-legged sitting while some were intimidated to sit on it.
