For him, one important goal in coming up with the shape of this project was to simulate the human body’s quality and natural form as much as possible. He uses the human form as a metaphor for the good posture, bodily flexibility and active lifestyle everyone aspires to attain. With this product, he assists with three simple movements people perform during the course of a workday: sitting and standing, twisting the body and stretching the back over a backrest, therefore improving health and increasing productivity.

Tetsuo Shibata received BA in Industrial Design and M.Arch. in Architectural Design from UCLA and has been working as an architect since mid 1990’s in California, Minnesota, Washington DC and Maryland. He is also an avid woodworker and furniture designer and his furniture pieces were included in group shows in Santa Monica, CA, Minneapolis, MN and Minnesota Young Architects Forum where his folding plywood chair won best design in furniture category. He has been involved in numerous community work projects as a volunteer carpenter for Habitat for Humanity, in tornado disaster area in northwestern Wisconsin and recently in earthquake and tsunami disaster area in northeastern Japan where he spent two weeks working with other volunteers from around the globe to clean up debris and sludge in a town hardest hit by this natural disaster. He also led a Model-making Workshop sponsored by Washington Architectural Foundation for grade school and middle school students and showed them various methods and techniques used in making architectural foam models.

Tetsuo Shibata is a furniture designer and an architect whose work is a synthesis of diverse cultural arts and traditions as well as contemporary artistic styles he has experienced and acquired over the years. His furniture work has been exhibited in small galleries in three U.S. states and featured in woodworker’s publications. Although he uses eclectic forms and materials in his furniture design, a consistent theme runs through all his works – elevating a mundane object to an art form that everyone can enjoy. Innovative forms, use of simple materials and adaptability to space via various configurations characterize his works. He believes furniture is an integral part of people’s living space that should grow and adapt to time and user’s changing needs.