The “Bib” chair

I sat on my office chair and was messing around with the handrails of my desk chair that were slightly loose and I thought: "Could I not convert the force I exert on the armrest into an upward force of the seat of the chair?"

A stand-up chair without electricity, easy to place and therefore also suitable for a dining room table. A chair that keeps you moving! Get up at your own pace. A modern fun chair, instead of the big electric models. Made from sustainable materials!

I have an innovative metal company, so in terms of construction this had to work, and I should be able to find various wood suppliers.

My father regularly complained about his electric stand-up chair, which he found far too slow in operation. "My guests are already on their way back home when I get to the door", he said...

In short, it was good to take a closer look at my idea!

To try out whether this idea would work, we picked up a chair at the local thrift store. This was professionally converted into a test model and… it worked!!

I was able to get up without much effort! Then the biggest challenge came…

The technique and the design! The technique had to fit into the design and the chair had to look nice too.

The requirements I had for the design were:

- A product with as many sustainable materials as possible.

- Easy to move and easily be placed at a dining table or desk.

- Can be supplied in sufficiently variable heights and designs

- In terms of design it had to have a more modern look.

This was followed by designing and the constructing of the first prototype. Searching for the correct transmission ratios, tilt angle of the seat and material research, whereby the technique had to fit in the smallest possible space. Not an easy task, but I was convinced that this idea was a good one!

The first model was plump, and we made the mistake of putting on a boring upholstery. It looked like a “care chair” and that was not the intention. Furthermore, the power transmission was not good enough. But it worked and the subjects were positive.

Drawing and calculating again....

The second model was much better. We chose bamboo as the type of wood and the upholstery color was bright red. Much better! With this, we brought the chair on its first fair. What did the audience, our future customers think? We had had 3D renders create what the Bib would look like we had in our minds.

This was a hit, because almost everyone liked the chair. Certainly the “zebra version” was very noticeable and attracted an audience. This made it possible to let many people try out the prototype.

The booklet of experiences became increasingly full of positive feedback. The first fair was a success. We were on the right track! As I had hoped, people tend to go for wood instead of plastic. The sustainable aspect was considered important! The chair was comfortable, and the reactions were very positive!

After this, the search for the wood suppliers began. This was a lot more difficult than we expected. After searching through various countries, we met Formesa in Finland thanks to the Dutch and Finnish division of the Enterprise Europe Network, (Thank you, Marielle and Mari,!). Formesa wanted to try to make the form-pressed backrest!

After the first few trial back panels we received, these were reasonably successful, it turned out that the design of the back panel caused some problems with gluing the layers. Adjusting the design was not an option for us, we had already researched this extensively.

Meanwhile, we were incredibly pleased and proud we had finished as one of the 64 finalists on the Second Call of the Worth Partnership Project. This gave us the opportunity to try to solve this problem.

So, off to Finland! 

During the short trip to Finland where we were impressed by this beautiful country, we discussed the possibilities with Formesa. It was good to see each other in person and in the end a satisfactory result was achieved.

Thanks to the WORTH Partnership Project, we have been given the opportunity to market a beautiful product together with Formesa. Furthermore, in collaboration with WORTH, we can bring the Bib chair to the attention of a large international audience, through the international fairs and all social media channels!

The aspect "keep moving" triggered me to develop this chair. By means of your own strength and balance, you are able to generate the power/strength to get up yourself. Independent!The urgency around sustainability is increasing enormously. We must save energy, generate sustainable energy, build circularly, and pay attention to our health. We have developed this chair with this main idea. The Bib chair is a sustainable product. Does not use electricity and the parts are made in such a way that almost everything can be reused.

We expect this product will appeal to many people, especially since there is no comparable chair. We are therefore very curious about companies that are interested in the Bib chair!