The Body by Kirsi Enkovaara can be twisted
and folded to create endless seating shapes

This flexible seating structure by Finnish designer Kirsi Enkovaara can be rolled and folded into a plethora of configurations to support the body in comfortable or strange positions (+ movie).

The Body is Kirsi Enkovaara‘s graduation project from the Design Products course at London’s Royal College of Art and was designed to encourage people to reevaluate how they sit.

The six-metre-long ribbed structure can be transformed into any shape and retains its position so the sitter can perch or lie on it in any way they find comfortable.

“From early on we learn what is the right way for sitting in our own culture and have seats that encourage these ways of sitting, but often we can find ourselves sitting in very odd positions in standardised seats,” Enkovaara told Dezeen.

“This seat provides an opportunity and encouragement to let a person dictate the way of sitting. It encourages awareness how a person and an individual body likes to sit and provides a platform for interaction and research into individual ways of sitting,” she added.

A flesh-coloured strip of canvas with seams stitched along its length is filled with grains of rice that help the structure hold its shape once positioned.

The friction of the granules inside the fabric tubes creates a rigid form with enough movement to shape itself around the user’s body.

Enkovaara said she experimented with other granular materials for the stuffing including various sizes of plastic pellets, but settled on rice because of its ability to maintain a solid structure.

“The rice inside ensures that while seated the structure moulds to your body and even the more unconventional positions can be comfortable,” the designer explained.

“Rice is a renewable and very accessible material,” she added. “Throughout history it has been used in Japan in pillows offering a more ecological and economical option to foam.”

Folded shapes add height to create surfaces for sitting or for use as backrests, while twisted forms provide enclosed spaces for burrowing into.

Stretching the shape out to form undulating elongated surfaces allows it to be used like a chaise longue, while rolling it up offers more conventional seating options.

The simple shape of the unfolded product was designed to offer optimum flexibility so the user is able to adapt it to their own body shape and enjoy finding the most comfortable configuration.

“While designing it, I went through multiple variations of the basic shape from round to more complex shapes but all of them ended up restricting the way it could be bent and shaped,” said the designer. “I find the beauty of this product being when the simple form turns into various complicated configurations as a result of human interaction.”

Enkovaara said she is now aiming to refine the product in the hope of finding a manufacturer who can produce it for the domestic market.

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