Design Discussion Week 7: Torpedo Proof Chair

Before reading the article, I had never heard about such a chair exists until the Professor mentioned it and hyped it up. I always had a gut feeling that enhanced versions of mundane items existed, but not to the extent as this chair. Said enhanced versions I’d imagined would be quite expensive as well, and generally not commonly used in the public audience. As such, it is rare for such items to be mentioned and known by people outside of the select few that are interested or involved with them.

After reading this article, I became more surprised about the qualities of the chair, with just how complex but also simple it is. Its origin tracks out, being specifically made in response to a war contract during WWII. I was very much surprised to learn that there were many steps to creating such a chair, given its rather simple design and material used. Yet such “simple” design and material is able to withstand the force of being dropped from an eight-story building, able to hold up to 1700 pounds, and survive torpedoes. Just goes to show that simples designs can go a long way, but also require a lot of design work and time to be able to get to that point. 

Speaking of which, I was originally under the impression that the chair had to a somewhat complex design given its resilience but was a bit surprised to see that it has what we today consider a simple and common design. Our perception of this particular design of chair today has become something we don’t usually take notice and thought. This is most likely due to the number of fake copies and slight alterations of the design mentioned that have been made and disturbed to the common populace. With the passage of time, not many will remember or even question the origins of said design, like how I did and thought that the chair would be of a greatly complex design. 

With that said, I’ve learned that often military inventions become products for civilian use, to which this chair is one such case. Another such artifact that has followed a similar path by deviating from some of its original intent is actually the microwave. It originated from the use of radar technology during WWII by the British, which was used to identify enemy locations. In fact, it was a happy accident that caused the microwave to be invented, with an engineer discovering that his candy bar melted as a result of the micro-waves being used in the radar technology. Thus, the first patent for a microwave oven was made in the 1950s and would eventually evolve into the common house application we now know today.