Got a Rolls? Get a $70k chair
Are you sitting comfortably? You should be in the Elysium-R chair, writes David Linklater.
You have to reach your target market: DavidHugh Limited launched what must be the world’s most sophisticated and exclusive office chair at Rolls-Royce Motor Cars in London this month.
The DavidHugh Elysium-R chair was hosted by the world’s most iconic Rolls-Royce dealership in a special window display for 10 days of January.
Good company: the ElysiumR is a NZ$71,000 feat of sit-down engineering, utilising ‘‘neutralising gravity’’ technology and flotation theory.
Elysium-R comes in a nearblack aniline leather, with a black chrome-plated stainless steel base and almond gold frame. It incorporates gel-filled, black-anodised aluminium armrests that sweep back to offer more support, following contours of the arms and the chair’s motion.
Only 18 will be available worldwide, to mark its 2018 release date.
The armrests are machinecut out of pure aluminium billet and anodised black. The armrests are sculpted using 3D CAD/CAM to follow the contours of both the arms and motion of the chair.
The engineers at DavidHugh say the grade of gel used in the arms mimics the quality of human skin. This ‘‘second skin’’ is covered with the same grade of leather as the body of the chair.
Elysium-R has a floatation mechanism derived from PhD research in human kinetics, allowing the user to move silently in zero-gravity conditions.
The technology that controls the movement of the Elysium chair is derived from a mathematical model written by its creator – inventor, designer and founder of DavidHugh, Dr David Wickett.
DavidHugh was established in 2013, but the first concept for Elysium dates back to 2002, when it was created as a central part of David’s postgraduate studies in furniture design.
David then took the knowledge gained from the project into the professional arena, where he worked with a medical seating company.
He was also a member of a bioengineering research group where he continued his work on the Elysium project. That research transferred to a PhD in science, where it formed a fundamental part of his doctoral thesis.
The user can treat the chair like an extension of their body, and manipulate it into the ideal position by subtly shifting their weight in the same manner as a rider might gently alter the path of a motorcycle.
This is made possible by the fact that only six roller bearings and one linear bearing connect the user with the environment, resulting in frictionless continuous balance.
The chair places the user in a ‘‘state of equilibrium’’ says the company. Blood circulation improves, less demand is placed on the heart, unique support to the pelvis aligns joints in the lower spine, back muscle activity reduces, and the intervertebral discs rehydrate and open the spine.