The Umbrella Chair is based on a concept ‘after the storm’, inspired by recent devastation caused worldwide by natural disasters, and also independent research into the preferential seating of humans. It encourages society to rethink the way we react to shifting conditions – rather than discarding the ‘old’, the Umbrella Chair encourages us to redesign the ‘old’ to create a ‘new’ more suited to our current conditions. I was originally seeking to find an alternate end-use for waste material found after storms, and was struck by the number of discarded umbrellas that could readily be sourced. My research indicated that people generally prefer to unite close to the ground in times of need.