How should you arrange your furniture?

As with so many things, it all depends.  How you arrange your furniture should depend on how you intend to use the space it’s in.  Logic prevails.  And try to invest in the bare minimum (you have other things to do with your money, but you can’t just give away Aunt Esther’s sofa if you inherit it either).  More furniture in a space will make it seem smaller, more crowded.

Your kindergarten teacher was right, we do interact more freely with people whose eyes we can see, hence the prevalence of seats arranged in circles whenever a conversation might be in the offing.  Everyone needs an eye contact break every so often, however, so it’s wonderful if there’s something vaguely within that ring to which people can gracefully divert their eyes when they need an eye contact break.  It can seem rude to actually look away from whomever your talking to but if your eyes travel a few feet in one direction or another while you look at a plant or a fish tank or something similar, no offense will be taken.

Although circular arrangements of chairs can have a lot going for them, sometimes rows are really the way to go as when we’re sitting in chairs arranged in rows we’re less likely to talk to others nearby, which can be great in a home theatre area, for instance.

When there’s no physical barrier between us and whomever we’re talking with, psychological barriers between us fall as well, which is better in some situations than others.  Sometimes sitting on either side of a table or something similar can help people have difficult conversations, preventing some conversations from becoming too heated. By the way, cross table corner conversations, when people talking are seated at either edge of a 90 degree or so table angle, they are likely to have cordial conversations and more likely to develop a relationship, bond.

The facts that rows are better sometimes, rings preferred other times, and that physical furniture can create needed psychological distance argues for having at least some seats in any place be moveable, able to be slid from one place to another by users and for a variety of seating configurations being available in any situation.

In any arrangement of furniture, there should be at least some seats with prospect and refuge, which is important for biophilic design, as discussed here.   When people have prospect and refuge they are seated in a place where they feel secure, for example, where it is unlikely that anything or anyone can approach them from the rear, without their knowledge, and they can see out over the nearby area in front of them, with views of the door to the room they’re in being particularly desirable.  In our bedrooms we also are particularly interested in having a view of the entry to the space where we’re sitting, with our bed ideally placed so that an opening door initially hides us from the view of whomever is coming into the room.

Everyone spending time together, to socialize or to work, should be able to sit in chairs whose seat pans are about the same height off the floor, that means the legs on those seats are about the same length.  When we’re looking up or down on people because some of us are sitting in chairs at bar stool height and others are in usual height chairs or on the floor, our interactions are affected in predictable ways.  People being looked up at seem more adultlike, more competent, and skilled while those being looked down on physically are perceived to be more childlike and their statements don’t carry the same weight or garner the same respect as those from the “adults” in the conversation.

Finally, if you have kids, get hold of a recliner.  When we’re reclined, we don’t get as upset by the activities of others as we do when in a more upright posture.  Parents of teenagers really need recliners.  We also tend to think more creatively when reclined, which may help with all that not getting upset.