When you were little, you never thought about the ergonomics of your school chair – because this is something that adults do. Grown people observe the necesitties of a solution and embark on a (sometimes lifelong) journey to improve their ideas and concepts.
Future Learning
How a 50 Year Old Chair Brand Influences Children
There are all kinds of desks to use for at-home learning and later in life, home office work. But then there’s a kind of desk that made history. Heatlhy seating and future learning go hand in hand and this is how this 50 year old brand influences the future of learning.
We’ve seen how ergonomics impact each one of us and our children too. So where do we look to when it comes to choosing the best ergonomics for everyone involved?
One of the best ways to find a quality product is to look at the investments behind it – investments in values, collaboration and optimization. Behind every great product there is a story.
50 Year Old Healthy Seating and Future Learning Brand: Flötotto
In this case, it’s the story of Heinrich Flötotto who, beginning from 1906, founds a cabinet maker’s shop in Gütersloh, Germany. This was only the beginning of a growing interest for improving the products he made.
Fast Forward: This is how their modern website greets you now:
Our furniture is like a piece of clothing. It must fit not only the room, but the person. FLÖTOTTO has been making furniture for 50 years. For 50 years FLÖTOTTO has been a family business. Since then we are known for school chairs, the profile system, cabinets, tables, and much more. Discover the world of Flötotto.
Flötotto
This world of Flötotto stretches back to when school was in a very different place than it is right now. The education process begins from simple things like the chair you sit on. We now know that every part of the learning process is influenced by ergonomics – impact on health and focus, the importance of good posture and the development of solution-oriented lifetime learning in a healthy, dynamic environment.
Imagine explaining to your child the importance of health by telling them the story of a man who invested in the development of a healthier, more collaborative and flexible learning environment.
In 1952, Flötotto patents the contoured seat and since then, the undulating seat design was sold more than 21 million times. Seeing the patent’s early succes, in 1956, the furniture maker started cooperating with pedagogues and architects to create exemplary school facilities that rivaled anything ever seen before and can easily compete with modern school and educational concepts.
All these different experiences led to doubling down on what it really means to have an optimized environment for study while in school – and bring that with you at home.
In our times, when online schooling is home schooling – the ergonomics of our most used furniture becomes part of how our kids grow up.
Study-from-Home Ergonomy back in 1969
The concept of at-home learning was revolutionised back in 1969. It started with student’s workplace “Optimal” that grew into an even deeper need to optimize for functionality – now the furniture brand invites us to see how they bridge the gaps in education:
Our FUTURE LEARNING platform brings all of the participants together: Students, educational facilities, architects, pedagogues, future researchers, designers, ergonomics experts and politicians. Together, we are developing the future of learning: Education 4.0.
And here is how their idea of learning in the future translates in creating a dynamic environment for the students:
What does the future of school look like? Lessons have not been held in one single specific way for a long time. A unit generally consists of various, alternating phases. Tables and chairs are regrouped accordingly.
Customisable and cooperative. Dynamic and progressive. It offers space for active participation, dynamic communication, inspiring scene changes and targeted concentration and mediation. FUTURE LEARNING improves results where people and science come together.
And here is how their design proves the differences between Flötotto’s school chair and the conventional school chair.
Everything important takes time. A brand with a history of curiosity and collaboration always has a portfolio that influences healthy trends not only in its niche, but also socially. Blending modularity, flexiblity, ergonomics, curiosity, learning and colaboration in one brand, Flötotto’s history moves on to:
- 1972 – Setting standards in German apartments with their modular profile system made of beechwood.
- 1980 – Focusing on the functionality of the school furniture.
- 2008 – Developing active, dynamic sitting in the shape of the new PRO school chair in collaboration with German industrial designer Konstantin Grcic.
- 2012 Winning several design prices when their PRO chair concept is presented at the Cologne furniture trade show and at Didakta.
- 2019 The flexible classroom is the focus of all further developments. In cooperation with architects and pedagogues, mobile furniture is created for the educational facilities of tomorrow.
This is why we’re encouraging you to visit Flötotto’s website and see all the ideas they’ve put into practice by a complex way of influencing the future of learning, at school and at home.
You might also like to take a design trip to these beautiful design possibilities for your children’s home study environment:
