JumpSeat Collection Marks a Decade as Sedia Systems’ Iconic Seating Design

Sedia Systems is commemorating the 10th anniversary of its award-winning and innovative JumpSeat® Collection, a striking design that dramatically raised the profile of the fixed seating company.

The JumpSeat, designed by Iranian-born immigrant Sohrab Vossoughi, founder of Ziba Design, was brought into commercial production and distribution by Sedia Systems’ founder and CEO Wilson Troup in 2012.

“Looking back over these past 10 years,” said Troup, “the JumpSeat, perhaps more than any other single design we have in our portfolio, put our company in the spotlight for the A&D community and helped extend our reach and reputation to a truly global audience. For Sedia Systems, the JumpSeat elevated us to another level.”

Since its introduction, the JumpSeat has been decorated with multiple awards for design excellence and product innovation from an array of organizations and publications, ranging from the International Interior Design Association, Best of NeoCon, IIDEX Canada, Interior Design magazine, Interiors and Sources magazine, Good Design and several others.

It also has evolved into a robust and versatile collection from its original application as a freestanding, floor-mounted seat designed for areas where space is at a premium. There are now three distinct options — the original JumpSeat, the JumpSeat 90 and the JumpSeat Wall. The classic edition is floor-mounted or available with a movable base, while the JumpSeat 90 is floor-mounted and configured at a 90-degree angle. The JumpSeat Wall is a wall-mounted version. In addition, Sedia Systems offers a JumpSeat WOW option which enhances the products with custom graphics for branding messages, corporate identity or just a splash of colorful pizzazz.

Clients around the world — from universities to healthcare facilities, from corporate board rooms to performing arts centers and worship sanctuaries — have installed the JumpSeat during the past decade as both a practical solution and a powerful aesthetic statement. There are installations throughout the globe, including French Polynesia, Australia, Thailand, Chile, Germany, Ireland and South Korea. In the island nation of Grenada, the House of Parliament’s Assembly Hall is outfitted entirely with the JumpSeat.

“It’s sophisticated, streamlined, and it makes a statement in every space it appears,” said Troup. “The JumpSeat represents an ideal blend and balance of form and function.”

For designer Sohrab Vossoughi, the JumpSeat was his way of solving a particular problem for the 175-person auditorium he included in his Ziba Design facility in Portland, OR. The shell of the space was tall and somewhat shallow, requiring a relatively steep pitch and narrow landing for the 10 rows of seating envisioned.

“I looked around for auditorium seating and there was nothing out there that really fit the footprint,” Vossoughi recalled. “We have a creative company here in Portland. I knew we couldn’t just sit on the concrete. It’s still true that necessity is the mother of invention. So I sketched a design for a very thin profile auditorium chair with a seat that cantilevers when in use and snugly retracts when unoccupied.”

Vossoughi found local wood-workers and cabinet makers in Portland to fabricate the design in prototype form for installation in the Ziba auditorium. “We were not planning mass production — just those 175 seats for our auditorium,” he said. “But I knew we had something beautiful and practical, and we patented it, entered it into a design competition, and it won. That’s when Wilson Troup called us and said he wanted to produce it for Sedia Systems.”

Sedia Systems negotiated a licensing arrangement with Ziba (Farsi for “beautiful”) and then invested in the tooling to manufacture the design both in Italy and in the company’s production plant in Asheboro, NC. The product was put through the testing paces to ensure that it would meet all applicable international and domestic performance and safety standards.

And for the past decade the globally patented product has steadily developed into a design icon for Sedia Systems as well as a source of enduring delight for the designer Vossoughi. “When people ask me about my favorite design,” Vossoughi said, “I always answer, ‘The next one.’ There’s always another project and another problem to work on.”

Vossoughi added: “It’s great that Sedia Systems was able to license and distribute this design. I’m always pleased to witness that wonderful moment when people look at that design, and try to figure out how it works. Then, when they sit on it, the magic of mechanics and physics comes together in a very comfortable and elegant seat.”

For Troup, the JumpSeat mystique has provided Sedia Systems with a growing reputation as the most design-forward firm in the fixed seating segment of the marketplace.

“Sedia Systems already was well along on the path to bring modern, more minimalist design to the market we serve, but adding the JumpSeat to our offer 10 years ago was a huge step forward,” said Troup. “It’s the design that speaks with a powerful echo that reverberates around all of our product offerings — and the halo effect attracts a lot of attention for Sedia Systems commitment to providing a balance of form and function through timeless design.”