Office Chair
Daniel Cruz
The City College of New York
ENGL 21007- Writing for Engineering
Professor Julia Brown
October 12, 2023

Definition

Chairs have been around for a very long time. There are many different designs of chairs
made for all types of bodies. There are chairs made for camping, for the beach, for school and
many other settings. The chairs serve their purpose but if you sit in a chair for long periods of
time you may start to feel uncomfortable or get tired of sitting and would like to move around.
Imagine feeling uncomfortable in your job sitting on a metal chair… my back would be killing
me. Therefore, the office chair was invented, it is a chair designed to be comfortable, adjustable
and easy to move with wheels. This chair is perfect for sitting for long periods of time at a
workplace or even at home if you decide to get one.

Overview

The office chair has many different designs and is made up of different materials. The
seat can be made up of metal, plastic or sometimes completely made of wood not including the
mechanics. They have many different types of colors, but the most common color is black. These
chairs can also be padded, cushioned, covered with leather or even have a mesh design. The
material of the office chair isn’t just for looks it has a purpose. The chair also has arm rests
which can be padded as well. Office chairs are built with five legs and each with wheels so that
you can move around the office without the need to get up. The five legs also offer the most
stability. Office chairs also have mechanisms that allow you to spin around and adjust the tilt and
height of the seat.

Components

An office chair has all the components of a comfortable chair, but the two main
components are the mechanics and the legs with wheels. The chair itself consists of a seat,
backrest and armrests. As stated, before there are many designs, but all office chairs are made for
comfort and mobility. The seat is attached to the base where the mechanisms and legs meet. The
mechanism has 3 purposes: tilt resistance, height adjustment and rotation. The seat tilt is
controlled by either a knob to increase or decrease resistance and/or a paddle switch to lock the
chair in place. It all depends on the design like my chair only has the knob for the tilt resistance.
For height adjustment there is a gas cylinder located between the legs and base. The gas cylinder
is called a pneumatic system, and it is triggered by the paddle which allows you to change the
height of the chair. The rotation system is pretty simple, and it’s called the swivel. And of course
the legs with wheels allow you to move freely within your office. The chairs generally fall under
these measurements; Height of chair 16 to 20 inches, Width 19 to 21 inches, depth 15 to 19
inches.

Explanation

The most important goal in an office chair is to make it comfortable. Whatever material is
being used to make the chair it is important, lets say you don’t want any padding you are gonna
have to design curves and dents into the chair to make it comfortable. Or maybe you are going
for a luxurious looks therefore you go for a leather material. The seat, backrest and armrests are
really important to maximize comfort so you must make sure that curves, dents and material all
complement each other. Now let’s get into the mechanical parts of the office chair. The seat may
have a knob and/or paddle for controlling the tilt. The knob allows you to turn clockwise or
counter clockwise in order to increase or decrease the resistance of the tilt to however you like it.
On the other hand the paddle locks the seat in place so you can not tilt at all. The mechanism
responsible for adjusting the height is called pneumatic system. Inside the cylinder part below
the seat is a chamber that compresses air when you push the seat down with body weight after
pressing the paddle connected to it. When you want to increase the height you press the paddle
again and the built up pressure in the chamber will push the seat up. At the bottom of the seat
there are 2 swivel plates that allow the seats to rotates a full 360 degrees making it easy to turn
around and get stuff around the office. Finally the five legs and wheels which add stability as
well as mobility. Three legs and wheels are enough for an office chair but for safety purposes
five is the recommended amount.

Visuals Figure: 1 Disassembled office chair

Figure 2: internal structure of the gas cylinder

Conclusion

Even though there are many different types of designs for an office chair they all are
made for comfort. The designs are also made for your safety like the five legs. You can have a
good office chair with three or four legs but the lesser amount the higher the risk of falling back.
Another possible risk of falling would be lowering the resistance to the point where leaning back
would be very easy and if you are not careful, you may push yourself back too quickly and fall
back.

References

Furniture@Work. (2022, November 14). Office Chair Mechanics and How They Work. Furniture
at Work. https://www.furniture-work.co.uk/blog/office-chair-mechanics-and-how-theywork
Autonomous. (2018b, November 2). Finding the suitable office chair dimensions (step by step).
autonomous. https://www.autonomous.ai/ourblog/finding-suitable-office-chair-dimensions

Vaughan, A. V., & Vaughan, V. (2020, August 26). How do office chair hydraulics work?.
Manutan UK Blog. https://www.manutan.co.uk/blog/office-chairs/how-do-office-chairhydraulicswork/#:~:text=Most%20modern%20office%20chairs%20use,use%20the%20science%20of
%20ergonomics.