Reflect Chair: Redefining Engagement and Emotional Well-Being

Reflect: A Chair That Redefines Engagement

In today’s world, furniture is often treated as background décor. Brooklyn-based architect and designer Tanuvi Hegde is changing that perception. Her Reflect Chair, unveiled at NYCxDesign 2025 during the Lower East Side exhibition OUTSIDE/IN (curated by Lyle Gallery and Hello Human), transforms a simple seat into something much more profound: an experience of presence and calm.

Part of her thesis collection Exhibit (A): Furniture for the Anxious Being, Reflect is more than a chair. It’s an invitation to engage with your senses — through touch, sound, and movement — offering grounding moments in a restless world.

Furniture as a Medium for Well-Being

Reflect began with a deeply personal question: How can design support emotional well-being?

For Hegde, it began with witnessing the unconscious movements we perform when we are restless — the fidgeting that are common gestures we perform expressed as they are a natural way to settle the mind and body. Sound healing vibrations inspired her to develop furniture that engages, acknowledges and transforms restlessness. Eventually, a fidgeting moment can become ritualized – a ceremony of grounding.

A Chair That Moves With You

At first glance, the Reflect chair looks quiet, restrained, and timeless. But a closer look reveals a hidden detail: a steel ball embedded in the armrest, gliding smoothly along a channel.

Pushing the ball causes small vibrations and rhythmic sound — He’s turning inertness into an experience that is active, almost meditative. It’s not just furniture, it’s an object of consideration that has a response to touch.

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Materiality is very important in Reflect’s sensory presence. The frame, being made from cherry wood, is durable and warm and invites a genuine invitation to interact. The hand stitched leather sling and cushion offer softness and comfort and balance the denseness of the structure with a tactile human presence.

These materials create a piece of furniture that feels like it is alive – something to live with and not only have the privilege of looking at.

Furniture for the Anxious Being

Reflect reimagines furniture. By integrating interactivity into its very essence, Reflect poses a challenge to the idea of furniture as static and passive, and invites curiosity, grounding, and engagement.

This philosophy is the essence of Exhibit (A): Furniture for the Anxious Being, where design is a form of empathy – not only functional, but emotionally meaningful.
Hedge’s project, Reflect, demonstrates that even the most familiar of objects can be reinterpreted in ways that can enrich human life. As Hegde notes, design is not just about the aesthetic, or the functional; design can be about creating experiences that increase our connection to ourselves and content of our environment.

Why the Reflect Chair Matters

Encouraging mindfulness through tactile involvement.
Integrates design and emotional wellness perfectly.
Challenges furniture traditions, making objects empathetic
Represents innovation in experiential design

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FAQ

What is unique about the Reflect Chair?

It’s the internal steel ball that allows everyone to experience interactive movement, and creates vibrations and sounds that stimulate the senses — a joiner of design and a mindful experience.

Who designed the Reflect Chair?

The Reflect Chair was designed by architect and designer Tanuvi Hegde, based in Brooklyn, and is part of her thesis collection Exhibit (A).

Where was the Reflect Chair first showcased?
The chair was unveiled at NYCxDesign 2025, Lower East Side show OUTSIDE/IN.
What materials are used in the Reflect Chair?
The frame is constructed of cherry wood, hand-stitched leather sling and cushion.

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