photo by Amelia D’Almeida
Students interact with furniture around the Lick-Wilmerding campus daily, yet rarely is a second thought given to these instruments of comfort and community. Lounge-like library chairs. Beanbags in the Center. The flat-top apple-green sofas that line the hallways. Then throw in the scandalous backless stools in the shops and architecture room. All of these are some of the pieces that shape everyday campus life, and, for the most part, we love our LWHS furniture.
But, what if there were chairs and tables for which everyone didn’t share the same affection? What would the ideal classroom look like if students got to choose what they would sit on?
Some of the student body has expressed negative sentiment toward the COVID-era furniture on campus in passing. Two years ago, the furniture on campus that was so familiar to the community drastically changed. In the midst of the Coronavirus outbreak, the school found itself scrambling to find ways that would allow students to return safely to campus. This meant swapping out all of the multiple-person tables and seating for furniture that allowed students to remain socially distanced. However, due to the circumstances, the usual trial period for testing out potential furniture was shortened or negated. As a result, we ended up with single-person tables that fit together in a sort of puzzle-like square of four and blue chairs whose legs are too wide to enable the chairs to be tucked under the table.
A recent anonymous survey illustrates the wide array of student opinions on various pieces of LWHS furniture. Below shows the average ratings based on a 1-5 scale, with five being the highest possible rating for each question.
Single-Person White Desks
Comfortability: 3
Popularity: 2.7
Ease of Use: 2.6
Some students expressed that the desks are “hard to move” and have “nothing noticeably wrong but nothing groundbreaking,” while another described the piece of furniture as “positively mid.” One student noted, “It can be really frustrating when they don’t fit together perfectly. The wheels can also get pretty difficult when they are unlocked and move around a lot.” Also, another enraged and exasperated upperclassman was not that pleased that these tables lacked geometric alignment and said it, “gives me brain issues.” However, an outlier said that “the multi-person white tables are hands down the best for classroom tables.” Most passionately, a survey participant positively declared, “They should be destroyed with fire.”
Above: Desks are re-arranged into a checker pattern with the new Herman-Miller chairs. A plus for teachers is the versatility of the arrangements the desks can be put into.
Below: The science classrooms feature old-school blue chairs, along with single-person desks.
photos by Odin Thien-An Marin
New-Generation Herman Miller Blue Stacking Chairs
Comfortability: 3.7
Popularity: 3.7
Ease of Use: 3.7
A staple of the LWHS new building, these blue instruments of education have been described as “comfy, but after a 70-minute class they make me hurt.” Another particularly long-limbed student provided a detailed assessment of the chair, “They look really comfortable, but again, as a tall person, these aren’t nice to sit on. I cannot stress this enough: the backs are really bad. They are short, which is totally fine, but angle backward so they provide NO lumbar support for me. As a tall person who already has back pain, this is very uncomfortable.”
Old-Generation Blue Chairs
Comfortability: 3.1
Popularity: 3.6
Ease of Use: 3.2
Artifacts from an iteration of LWHS of the past, these articles of furniture are outfitted with a plastic V-shaped cavity on its backrest and hollow metal legs. One student stated that the chairs “don’t cradle the user as well” and another declared that they are “much worse than the new blue chairs, significantly worse.” Others reported that the chairs are “comfortable, stylish and classic,” “very good for back cracking” and “lowkey comfortable.”
Bean Bags in the Center and the library
Comfortability: 4.5
Popularity: 4.2
Ease of Use: 2.9
Winning the category of most comfortable are the bean bags found in the Center and the library. Aside from the flattop apple-green sofas, these are the best option for students looking to catch a bit of shut-eye. The comfortability rating says it all: the bean bags would be a student’s go-to piece of furniture for classrooms, but a teacher’s nightmare for re-arranging, bringing in the lowest ease-of-use rating of all polled pieces of furniture on campus.
Breakout Space Burgundy Upholstered Chairs
Comfortability: 4.4
Popularity: 4.4
Ease of Use: 3.9
Inhabiting the foyer outside of the theater, as well as other choice locations in the halls on the first and second floors, this vessel of comfortability provides both a snug spot for free-block naps and a space for leisure work. More than 80% of students gave the chair an impressive comfortability rating of 4 or higher, due to the multiple ways students can comfortably “diversify the way they sit,” as put by one surveyee. At times, students can be found in various comfortable contortions in these chairs.
Just ahead of the burgundy upholstered chairs in terms of popularity with almost a perfect score is the Big Chair, the subject of Big Chair Appreciation Club. A student confidently proclaimed, “The Big Chair will outlast us all.”
