Coalesse, Massaud Wingback
Strategy, Application & Product Development
The Massaud Wingback Lounge was a continued exploration of user controlled privacy and technology integration. What sorts of scenarios could emerge if a chair behaved like a bluetooth headset?
I led the application, upholstery, and technology development for the wingback lounge chair, working with a world class team of upholsterers and bluetooth audio experts.
Application Development
Audio bubble
The idea is not a new one. However, with new technologies, I had the opportunity to evolve the experience of a private conversation in a public setting. I explored various application scenarios, including face-to-face and remote contexts.
One-to-One
Likely the most typical of scenarios, the wingback lounge can create a personal conference with a remote participant. The open-air audio bubble experience allows the user to hear their remote colleague, but also provides awareness of their local environment and proximity to other people/listeners.
4-way
There were various permutations of this remote group conference call. In all of them, the comfort and ergonomics of the lounge chair cannot be underestimated. Shifting your focus away from a polycom phone (communication device), combined with a properly positioned screen, has big potential for more meaningful discussions.
United Nations
This aspirational scenario speaks to the potential of integrating technology into furniture. In addition to wireless microphones and speakers embedded into the headrest of the chair, what if each chair could translate audio into different languages? By making the technology invisible, users can now focus on more nuanced physical and social connections.
Upholstery Development
A lot of effort was spent hiding the somewhat bulky technology within the sensitive form of the wingback headrest. Each wing is mounted to the chair frame with robust friction hinges and discreet wire pathways bring power to both speakers and microphone array.
Technology Integration
I located and contracted a SF Bay Area bluetooth engineering consultancy who had done extensive research and development with wireless hearing aids. We created breadboard level prototypes of speaker and microphone systems that could pair, wired or wireless, to a users phone. Similar to audio transparency mode (Apple AirPod feature), we explored and fine-tuned the open-air audio bubble experience. It was a truly unique to stand next to the chair and not be able to hear anything whereas the seated user could hear audio perfectly.
The Massaud Wingback Lounge concept was presented at Neocon and the Salone de Mobile in 2015.