Sid Lee co-creative director Louis-Thomas Pelletier finally got so fed up with sitting in meetings all day that he decided to do something about it. ‘I remember when I was a kid, I heard that at McDonald’s the chairs were designed so that you wouldn’t stay too long. I don’t know if it’s true, but it struck my imagination,’ he says.

With the blessing of Sid Lee CCO Philippe Meunier, Pelletier teamed up with industrial designer Gabrielle St. Pierre to create the Slightly Uncomfortable Chair Collection, or SUCC for short. Out of 50-odd ideas came the six chairs – one for each member of Sid Lee’s project teams – each with a uniquely uncomfortable attribute such as rocking legs that tip you over or an angled seat that invades your, er, personal space.

The prototypes launched at the SIDIM design fair in Montreal this summer, where they received such positive response (winning the Best Small Stand award) that Sid Lee has reproduced them for public sale. The chairs will be available this winter in the boutique at the Montreal-based agency’s Amsterdam office – opened Nov. 20 – for an as-yet-undetermined price. Stops at design fairs elsewhere in Europe are also in the works.

In the meantime, Pelletier is happy to have a tangible reminder to keep meetings short and sweet. ‘It’s actually in the empty spaces that you do your work,’ says Pelletier. ‘If you look at somebody’s schedule and it’s empty, you think that person is doing nothing. I think it’s the opposite.’