Energy generating Murakami rocking chair powers its own light source

Not long ago you could retire to your favorite rocking chair after a hearty evening meal and read a good book or catch up on the day’s news. But now with global warming and energy consumption going through the roof, who can relax? Thank goodness for the Murakami Chair – a rocking chair that generates enough power through its rocking motion to power its own reading lamp.

Designer Rochus Jacob has harnessed all that wasted kinetic energy created by gently rocking in the chair and has used advanced nano-dynamo technology built into the skids of the chair to power a reading lamp above the user’s head. And the lamp shade itself is actually the light source – it’s created from OLEDs. Thankfully, the flat and bendable organic light emitting diodes don’t require much power to deliver enough light to make reading enjoyable.

If you use the chair during the day a battery pack stores that energy for night-time, which means you can read without rocking, if you want to.

“I was looking for opportunities to generate energy through activities we naturally do,” said Jacob. “The final result is a rocking chair that enables the user to experience production and consumption of electricity in a gentle and rewarding way.”

Rewarding, indeed. The Murakami Chair was a co-winner of the designboom green life competition.

Via Urbergizmo