Skip to main content

Morph: a bold seating concept for flexible air travel

Pay for space, not a seat

Gallery Photo: Morph by Seymourpowell
Gallery Photo: Morph by Seymourpowell

Air travel on a budget isn't often pleasant. Despite huge leaps forward in comfort for the upper classes (and the more recent "premium economy" class), the economy section of a cabin is more often than not cramped, packed, and charmless. British design firm Seymourpowell has a seating concept that it believes will change that. It's called Morph.

"Passengers who can afford premium, business or first class have a choice and hence some control over their own experience," says Seymourpowell's head of transport Jeremy White. "Morph is a solution – a standard product that meets the needs of lots of different kinds of people."

The pitch is simple: Morph can, quite literally, morph to best serve those who are using it.

Morph by Seymourpowell

1/6

Rather than a trio of individual seats, each made of several pieces of fabric and foam, Morph is better described as a bench. A single piece of fabric is stretched across to form the seats, and another forms the back of the chair. The individual seats are designated using armrests and dividers to clamp the fabric in place. Instead of moving the entire seat back to adjust the pitch of the chair, mechanized seat formers are positioned under the fabric, allowing users to decide the recline and support that best fits them.