The Mixed Reality Laboratory at Nottingham University wanted to have a series of chairs that connected various locations across the campus using audio.

On visiting their studios and meeting some of the researchers we proposed using their expertise to create a virtual audio space that could be easily navigated from each chair. This was done using a rotating dial positioned in the centre of a circular building model. As you virtually moved about the space you could hear from the chair’s speakers the distant conversations of the other people in the building and moving closer and using the microphone you could join in. To show how many people were in the same room as you at any moment the model had lighting that got brighter with the number of occupants.

To make the virtual space interesting for a single person we had an internet radio station continuously playing in one of the rooms.

To achieve all this we used an open source Virtual Reality engine popular with the researchers called “VREng” that connected over the college network. This ran on compact Linux machines with surround sound speakers and a microphone, all identically housed in each chair.

This illustration shows the virtual audio space with some chairs moving around inside it. In each frame, to the left of the model is the dial for chair ‘one’ showing its current position and that room’s occupancy and on the right is the occupancy as seen by the other three chairs.

The use of open source software allowed the researchers to experiment with the installation and add their own audio inventions. We particularly liked the speaking avatar that read out email messages. Researchers would email lengthy papers or instruction manuals and settle down to listen to them being read out rather than having to read them themselves.

The 'generous' design aesthetic was intended to evoke the semantics of a gentleman’s club chair whilst accomodating all the hardware required to deliver the audio. The ergonomics were developed from the classic Dreyfuss book “The Measure of Man” and prototyped in insulation foam for approval. The final chairs were machined by aerospace engineers Rojac out of flame retardant polystyrene that allowed hand fitting of the hardware. The bespoke upholstery was designed and fitted by fellow RCA alumni lingerie makers Strumpet & Pink.

The chairs were installed in various locations in the Nottingham campus just in time for a funding review where they were very well received.