Projects / Globy / Interactive seating

Globy

Interactive seating that gives preschoolers a place of their own inside adult-sized rooms

DisciplineFurniture & soft-goods design

UsersPreschoolers, 3-5

TeamIzzah Azam, Hadiya Khawar, Yumna Raza

Made withPU foam, rexine, hand-sewn covers

01Brief 02Research 03Ergonomics 04Modules 05Models 06Sensory 07Material 08Built

Brief

Sitting up, and sitting together

Design attractive, interactive seating for 3–5 year-olds that introduces proper posture and rebuilds social skills in post-COVID daycare. Two years of isolation left a cohort that had barely sat with other children, in rooms furnished either for adults or with a plastic stool.

Globy answers both at once: seats dimensioned from child anthropometrics so feet land flat and backs stay supported, arranged facing inward on one shared base so sitting down is already a social act.

PlayfulnessAgencyStimulationExplorationSocial interaction

Research & development

What we asked, and who we asked

AnthropometricsSeat height, depth and back angle set from 3-5 year-old sitting data, not scaled-down adult chairs

Child psychologistInterviewed on what actually prompts play between children who don't know each other

Class activityFive groups observed to see how children claim and share a space

ScenariosPre- and post-case sketches testing each seating idea against real situations

Post-COVID contextTeachers reported children arriving with slumped sitting habits from screens and floor play, and little practice sharing space

Existing furnitureComparative study of nursery chairs, floor mats and bean bags, each fails posture, play or hygiene

Mock-up trialsFoam blocks cut to trial heights, sat on and re-cut until feet rested flat and children stayed put

Scenario board: preschooler behaviour, existing chairs failing, sensory studies and early module scenarios — Scenario board. Top row, what children actually do, sensory play, constant supervision, saddled positions. Bottom row, where existing chairs fail: bags hung on backs, fidgeting sideways, adult-sized food-court chairs toppling over. Right, the sensory and climbing ideas that survived into the final piece.

Ergonomics

Posture is a dimension, not a reminder

The finished Globy seat in a studio room, next to adult chairs — In the room it was made for, the adult chairs behind it are the problem the dimensions answer.

Nobody tells a three-year-old to sit up straight twice. Every posture rule became a measurement, taken from 3–5 year-old anthropometric data, then checked on foam mock-ups.

Seat heightSet to popliteal height, feet flat, knees near 90°

Seat depthShort of buttock-popliteal length, so the edge clears the knee

BackrestSlight recline, firmer at the lower back, leaning back beats slumping

ArmsPadded arms at resting elbow height stop side-sliding

Foam densityFirm under the seat, soft at the edges

Sight linesTurned inward at each other's eye level

The base is the footrest, one raised platform gives every child a floor at the right height.

Modules

Three seats, three ages

Each seat is a foam module shaped for a different stage, an enclosed tub for the youngest, an open wedge, a raised perch for the oldest. They face inward, so sitting down puts a child in front of another child.

Ideation sheets: flip-reversible wedges, bean bag, pods, transforming forms and adjustable-height chairs — Ideation. Flip-reversible wedges that connect front and back, a two-tone bean bag, sitting pods with sensory elements, forms that transform to reveal seating, and no-fixed-direction cubes, the last two ideas became the base and the inward-facing modules.

Enclosed tub seat module — Enclosed tub, arms all the way round for the youngest

Open seat module with a low back — Open seat, one arm dropped, easier to climb in and out

Wedge perch module — Wedge perch, a backrest to lean on, nothing to trap

Key modelling

Carved, squashed, skinned

Three rounds of key models, each one testing a different question: does the cluster read as one object, does the seat pocket hold a child, and does a stitched rexine skin survive the compound curves.

Numbered pink foam key model of the seat cluster — Round one, pink foam. Every part numbered so heights could be swapped and re-cut between sittings.

Clay model of a single seat pocket with texture wells — Round two, clay. Pressed by hand to find the seat pocket, arm height and the wells the texture patches sit in.

Model skinned in purple and orange rexine, hand-stitched — Round three, skinned. Purple and orange rexine hand-stitched over the form to prove the panel layout before full scale.

The three of us on the studio floor working from the models — Studio floor. Measuring off the models and redrawing the panel patterns full size, all three of us at once.

Sensory

Textures you can peel off and swap

Padded orange rings velcroed onto the purple base — Rings and patches sit between and beside the seats, within arm's reach of every position, and double as handholds for climbing up

Round texture patches are set into the base: ridges, clusters of soft tubes, coarse honeycomb, scattered beads. They give a fidgeting child a reason to stay, and two children something shared to touch.

Every patch is velcro-backed, so a child can pull one off, swap it with a friend and press it back somewhere else. The prototype patches are stand-ins for the moulded final versions, the point was to test which textures got picked up first.

The base is climbable by design and takes a child's weight anywhere, so getting to a seat is part of the play.

Yellow patch with raised diagonal ridges — Ridges, drag a fingertip across

Patch with soft ribbed tubes of different diameters — Tubes, fingers fit inside, different sizes

Patch of corrugated honeycomb paper — Honeycomb, springy, pushes back

Patch scattered with small hard beads — Beads, bumpy, the one children rubbed longest

Material

Soft everywhere, wipeable everywhere

Core

Polyurethane foam, no hard edges, no frame to fall against

Cover

Rexine synthetic leather, wipes clean, survives a nursery

Colour

Purple base, orange seats, the seats read as the invitation

The brochure

Handed out at the show

A tri-fold in the same purple and orange: key terms, material selection, our three rules, and the team.

Globy tri-fold brochure, cover and both spreads

Built

Full scale, hand-sewn

A plywood ring with radial ribs set the footprint, foam and batting built the volume, then every panel was cut from the fabric layouts and sewn by hand. The base alone took three of us to turn. It was shown at full scale at the end-of-semester exhibition.

Plywood base ring with radial ribs on the studio floor — Base ring and ribs cut in plywood, seat outlines drawn straight onto the deck.

Form built up in foam and batting before covering — Foam and batting wrapped over the frame until the seat pocket held its shape.

Purple cover fitted over the base with seats still in white batting — Purple base cover on, three seats fitted and waiting for their orange skins.

The three of us with the finished seats — Finished seats, and the three of us who sewed them.

The finished Globy prototype, three orange seats on a purple base with sensory patches

The finished piece: three seats turned in on each other, sensory patches within reach of all of them, and a base low enough to climb.

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