Vitra Chairless

Alejandro Aravena - About the unreducibility

I thought there wasn't an easier way to build a chair than that:

Then I saw this:

You can say three things about the seat band of this Ayoreo-Indianer:
First: It may be that it can not achieve something else than using this decent piece of fabric as chair. To know how to work with these materials, is very important for it.
Secondly: This man is a nomad– that's why every kind of chair, even if he had money, would be unneccessary for him.
Thirdly: This piece of fabric is the last boundry, before the noun „chair“ becomes the verb „sitting“. The design is unreduceable.

Inspired by the "chair" of the Ayoreo-Indians in Paraguay, the seating tool Chairless has been developed in cooperation work of architect and designer Alejandro Aravena and the business Vitra.

Basically Chairless is a band, which you put around yourself, to keep back and legs together, just like usually the arms do it. So the body can stay in that position for a longer time and the hands stay free for eating, drinking, writing, text-messaging, talking on the phone etc. The more the legs get tired, the wider do they open themself, and the more will you push the back upwards; the band solves the problem of getting tired.

Chairless is with that a seating tool for the modern nomad. The robust fabric band offers a comfortable sitting without seat and back rest – and is because of that everywhere the solution, where isn't a seat opportunity: for alunch in the parc, while waiting in filled airports, a picnic on the grassland, sitting at a concert, while reading at the beach and at many other occassions. Chairless is so light and compact that you can have it with you all the time.

Chairless releases the backbone and the legs, a shoring or the clasping of the knees is not neccessary anymore. Through the many releases a feeling of the whole body relaxation occurs and you have free hands: to work with a laptop or iPod, to read, to eat etc.

Chairless is available in four versions. A part of the revenues of "Chairless" inures to the benefit of the Ayoreo-Indians.

supplementary information

• Homepage of the Vitra Chairless

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