As more and more people work in seated positions, furniture companies are responding with ergonomically designed furniture that should provide comfort and alleviate pain. Recent studies have shown that 1) workers in ergonomic seating achieve better results and 2) ergonomic seating should allow movement. People move while they sit—and this is a good thing. We are not automatons after all.

Binaria Stool. Designed by Jordi Badía and Otto Canalda. Available through Barcelona Design.

Split Seat Revolutionizes Ergonomic Seating

Barcelona Design (BD) now offers a revolutionary stool designed by Doctor Jordi Badía and industrial designer Otto Canalda. Entitled Binaria Stool, this split seat is “specially recommended for all those activities which are undertaken in a seated position but require mobility.” Originally created in 2003 for the Oken Company, Binaria Stool was adopted by Barcelona Design in 2010. BD presents Binaria in three finishes—black, white, and red—as well as in a new leather version.

The medical idea behind Binaria Stool, developed “from a meticulous anthropometric study,” is that the shape of the seat is guaranteed to be “the most beneficial position for the back with respect to the legs.” Thanks to Binaria’s 135 degree angle and its central division, the stool “makes it natural to separate the legs and so achieve stability for the coxofemoral joint.” Whether you’re a supermarket cashier, a draftsman, or a dentist, Binaria Stool should feel good.

Barcelona Design presents Binaria Stool in steel with a matte powder coating. The seat is made of injected integral polyurethane and is height adjusted via a gas piston in a steel metallic finish. The stool comes equipped with nylon casters, so users can move around their workspace more easily.

About the Company: Barcelona Design began in 1972 as “an expression of almost insolent rebellion by a group of young, unsatisfied architects, and soon became a productive philosophy with a mission to break moulds.” The company does not manufacture. It chooses objects, then seeks out the best possible process “so that each [object] is the result of the skill and care of genuine craftsmen or of the most advanced, intelligent technology.” BD employs talented designers the world over in order to remain at the cutting edge of Spanish and international design. Some of their more famous designers of the past include Antoni Gaudí and Salvador Dalí; presently, BD features the work of Konstantin Grcic and Ross Lovegrove, among others.