Body Terrain
An interactive chair that turns pressure data into a personal reflection tool, not a diagnosis.
Design Research, Physical Prototyping, Interaction Design
Most product design starts by solving a problem. This project started from a question instead: what if a chair could help someone notice their own body, without telling them what's wrong with it?
Feel Your Body is a low, backrest-free stool fitted with six pressure sensors. As someone sits, the sensors capture how their weight settles and shifts. At the end of a short session, the chair prints a "body terrain" — an abstract, take-home visualization of that person's own pressure pattern, paired with a short reflective prompt.
The system deliberately withholds judgment. There's no posture correction, no flagged "bad" habits, no score. The chair's backrest-free, slightly unstable seat is itself part of the design — a small disruption meant to pull attention back to the body, rather than a comfort feature to optimize.
This is a Final Master Project (TU/e), deployed semi-publicly at the university library over five days. More than 30 people interacted with it, and 19 took part in follow-up interviews.
Impact
Process
Reflection
A chair that reflects your body back to you — without judging it.
Deployed at TU/e library · 5 days
30+
Participants
19
Interviews
85%
Raising participants' body awareness
"Seeing other people's results makes you think about your own body more."
— participant, semi-structured interview
Feel Your Body started from a question, not a problem:
What if a chair could help someone notice their own body — without diagnosing it, correcting it, or telling them what's wrong?
The probe is a low, backrest-free stool fitted with six pressure sensors. After a short seated interaction, it generates a printed "body terrain" — an abstract visualization of that person's own weight distribution, alongside a short reflective prompt. The system deliberately withholds judgment: no posture correction, no flagged "bad" habits, no scores. Interpretation is left entirely to the person holding the printout.
Deployed at the TU/e library over five days, the installation drew more than 30 participants and 19 follow-up interviews — evidence that a reflective, non-diagnostic interaction can hold attention in an ordinary public space, without gamification or instruction.