When is a chair not a chair?

I just read a lovely article by Dewi Nurjuwita reminding us of some of the most beautiful, well-designed and well-made chairs of the 20th century. It got me to thinking about how to explain the design of chairs for the 21st century to my students in the IE Bachelor in Design program. Everyone says that chairs are one of the most difficult objects to design well. Of course, this is true, especially if your first goal is to create an art object or the "best chair ever." 

Therefore, let's take a step back and instead of designing a chair, let's say we want to design "something to sit on"... This opens the door and hopefully the minds of our students to the questions they should be asking before they approach any design challenge. Something to sit on: Why? Should it do other things in addition to being something to sit on? For whom? Where? What's the context? The history? What materials could I use to make it sustainable as well as meet the other objectives? How will it be made? How long could it last?

When students use critical thinking when facing a difficult assignment, it contributes to the development of a process or an approach that they will be able to use for many design challenges - not just a chair. As educators, we need to help students develop rigorous ways of thinking and tackling the unknown. Yes, they need to know about chairs and many others things. But they also need to know how to approach challenges in the future for which we still don't have a specific word.