Emmett Lockridge - GRAN Lounge

Gran Lounge

Designing a Gaming Chair

With the spike in e-gaming popularity, many furniture companies are offering specific chairs to support this activity, gaming chairs. Current gaming chairs focus on the PC gaming esports environment, leaving a wide market gap where many casual, recreational gamers exist. This master's thesis project seeks to understand the needs of this user group and provide an alternative solution that is more suited to the residential setting.

1 | Context

Using modern, residential interior design as an aesthetic driver to re-think the presentation of a gaming chair.

2 | Comfort

Incorporating responsive micro-motion into the design to support dynamic gaming postures.

3 | Construction

Simplifying fabrication techniques to promote ease of manufacturing and assembly.

1 | Context

Gaming in the Living Room

User surveys helped determine the living room as one of the main spaces casual gamers do their gaming. From this point, stock imagery was used to define the mood of these spaces. To match current residential interior design trends, a modern, minimal aesthetic defines this chair.

Simplicity in Form Generation

Two metal lines dominate the elevation of Gran Lounge. Simple manipulations allow for a clear, minimal solution for the structure of the chair.

2 | Comfort

Comfort Study

A 1:1 chair buck was used to test subjects such as height, back angle, and the amount of flex. This tool was critical in tweaking dimensions to ensure the comfort of the final proposal. A cantilevered form is combined with a metal frame in order to allow the chair to respond to the gamer while changing between postures. This has to be robust to account for rapid postural changes