Students work with Ercol to exhibit at V&A Museum of Childhood

Seating for schools created by Bucks New University furniture design students together with Ercol, features at a new exhibition, Sit Down: Seating for Kids, which opened earlier this month at the V&A Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green, East London.

Taking the classic children's tale Goldilocks and the Three Bears as its starting point, Sit Down: Seating for Kids invites the visitor to consider what makes a successful seat. Is it comfort? Is it style? Or ease of use?

The exhibition runs until 5 September 2010. Spanning four centuries, it features over 70 examples of seating made for children, ranging from school chairs to armchairs, saddles to swings, highchairs to potties. Designs by Charles Eames, Vitra and El Ultimo Grito are on display, as well as the Modernist high chair by Dutch architect Gerrit Rietveld, and Spotty, a 1960s paper chair designed by Peter Murdoch.

MA Furniture Design students at Bucks New University were invited to design a seat for use in schools, and worked with renowned furniture company, Ercol, to produce a series of full-sized prototypes which are on display at the exhibition.

Ercol, which has manufactured a wide range of furniture in solid wood since the 1920s, helped the students in writing the initial design brief and provided them with valuable feedback on their conceptual designs. The students performed research into furniture in schools before developing their ideas with sketches and computer-generated designs. Once the designs were complete, Ercol gave practical support to the students by making the prototype stools at its factory near High Wycombe.

Dr Lynn Jones, Course Leader, MA Furniture Design & Technology at Bucks New University, commented: "The students did an amazing job. The work demonstrates a very high level of entrepreneurship, design ability, and craftsmanship. To have conducted serious research, developed a design through to prototyping with Ercol, and to have had the confidence to then have the stools exhibited for feedback about their credibility, is a very brave thing to have done.

"It will be very interesting to see the feedback as the show progresses - a golden opportunity for the group, and for the University. Ercol again demonstrated unerring support for young graduates entering the furniture profession and its staff have been tremendous advisors and supporters of the students, of the University, and of the exhibition itself."

Edward Tadros, Chairman of Ercol, said: "To create new furniture for schools is no lightweight task and what you see is clearly work in progress. The students have put in a lot of thought and listened to the discussions about how children sit and how much they sit, or don't sit. A stool, which has no back, should also encourage a better posture in a child.

"There was a lovely idea of making the turnings on the legs as spheres and cylinders and cones, all the simple geometric shapes of children's building blocks, and in brilliant colours. The designers have not forgotten to form these stools very much in the idiom that you would expect to be associated with Ercol.

"It is work in progress because this is the first showing the stools have had. There is considerable work still to be done to ascertain if we are right and that they do meet the needs of the teachers and the children. With regards to methods of manufacture, Ercol is very much about wood, but they could be made in other materials too.

"We've very much enjoyed being part of this project, from the chair arch at the entrance, to the project with the stools and the other pieces of Ercol furniture included in the exhibition. Thank you to the Museum, I am sure it will be a much enjoyed and appreciated exhibition over the coming months."

Sit Down: Seating for Kids runs until 5 September 2010 at the V&A Museum of Childhood, Cambridge Heath Road, London, E2 9PA.