Head Chaise: Couching One's Thoughts into a Brain Wave Sofa [Slide Show]

A neuro-feedback-contrived couch in Belgium that came literally out of one of the designer's heads

Simply Divan: The Brain Wave Sofa Upholstery to finish the job consisted of gray felt with buttons in the valleys. The alpha waves that inspired the contouring are present when your eyes are closed. Maassen and Verbruggen foresee the day when all they will have to do is close and open their eyes and a machine tool will start buzzing away. Dries Verbruggen and Lucas Maassen
They Sat on What They Had Done--and It Was Good Maassen [left] and Verbruggen take their creation for a test sit after machining is finished. Dries Verbruggen and Lucas Maassen
A Thought Materializes A computerized machine tool accepted a computer file of Maassen's three seconds of fame and milled the contours out of soft foam. Dries Verbruggen and Lucas Maassen
Choosing One's Best Work Each dimension of this stylized version of the three-second pattern chosen by Maassen and Verbruggen represents different characteristics of the alpha waves, which are present in a relaxed mental state. The length of the couch is the time dimension. When you are sitting in the middle of the couch, you are between one and two seconds of Maassen's thought pattern. The height of the different bumps represent the strength of the signal, and the width of the sofa corresponds to the frequencies of the waves, which oscillate between 8 and 12 hertz. Dries Verbruggen and Lucas Maassen
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Catching the Right Wave From a long train of alpha waves, ranging over a course of minutes, Verbruggen and Maassen picked a three-second segment in which Maassen had repeatedly closed and reopened his eyes. "The role of the designer is challenged in this procedure," they remarked in a prepared commentary on their project. "By looking at the 3-D visuals, you are directly influencing your designs." Dries Verbruggen and Lucas Maassen
EEG as design schema The electronencephalogram (EEG) provided a 3-D plot from three seconds of recording. This plot became the design schema for machining the Brain Wave Couch. Dries Verbruggen and Lucas Maassen
From My Brain to Your Machine Tool Lucas Maassen, a furniture designer from Eindhoven in the Netherlands, donned a cap with a handful of electrodes when working with Verbruggen during the fall on this project, which was funded by the Flemish government in Belgium. Dries Verbruggen and Lucas Maassen

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