Businesses and institutions have furniture with far more demands than you or I, with our sofa that has nothing more to do than just be a comfy place to park our asses to watch The X Factor on Saturday night.

Think about the demands made on a typical chair in a hospital. In the course of a single day, it may play host to a hundred people - all getting up, sitting down, moving around as they wait for an appointment. That places the kind of strain on the springs, padding and covering that is way beyond what the typical chair at home must face. And - without wishing to get too gory about it - these are people who could be seeping and weeping from sores, fistulas and wounds pretty much the whole time. Not only are these fluids potentiall damaging in and of themselves, but need serious cleaning power.

You might be able to mop up some crisp crumbs from your settee with a babywipe, but when it comes to hygienically mopping up semi-congealed blood that dog just ain't gonna hunt. Hospital hygiene requires serious cleaning products which count corrosiveness amongst their arsenal. All that adds up to a lifetime of wear, tear and potential damage every single day.

Welcome the world of contract furniture!

We'll pick up on the score of hospital furniture right now, while we're both in the mood. Have you ever given any thought to the problems posed by the design of the humblest chair in a hospital?

For not only must it withstand the wear and tear of daily use and cleaning but must also come within a tight budget. For sure, the typical hospital chair doesn't have to conform to the whims and vagaries of interior design fashion, making it impervious to the possibility of being binned on the basis of taste, but hospital budgets are tight - and if it comes down to a choice of ECG machine vs. wingback chair, the chair bites it every time. That means these things need to have a long lifespan.

So for manufacturers, the challenges they face are immense. They must bring in an incredibly sturdy design that balances comfort (ever waited in A&E for a few hours while you bleed to death from a gaping axe-wound?) with toughness and durability, all at a cost that is appealing to hospital bean-counters.

No easy task.

The key lies in simplicity of design. Little scope here for the designers to go overboard in designing something that wouldn't look out of place in a loft apartment kitted out in blonde wood. Purely function is the order of the day - straight back, straight arms, thick sturdy framework and a cushioning seat that is practically welded in place. Grimly utilitarian? Sure. But absolutely necessary in context.

As for style? Forget about it. Wipe-clean materials don't come in the kind of snazzy eurostyle finish you might find at home. Soft pastels (many hospital patients are elderly and therefore easily shocked by bright colours) are the order of the day - and a lightly discernible pattern is all you are likely to get in terms of visual sustenance.

Of course, you don't just sit down whilst waiting for Doctor Kildare to come around and take that pan off your head - chairs are used for many other day to day interactions, such as sharing a meal with a loved one (or someone to whom you are indebted for Whatever Reason). Whilst standards have relaxed down the years, most restaurants still draw the line at admitting customers who are openly dying, and as such the demands placed on their seating in terms of bodily fluids are minimal. Despite that restaurant furniture must field dangers posed by hot gravy, "jus" and the sundry liquified treats that inventive chefs pepper their dishes with these days.

And of course, the clientele are happily quaffing fermented grape, increasingly prone to dropping their peas all over the place. Unlike hospital furniture, the clientele can be static for several hours so comfort takes a massive priority.

The peculiar priorities of finance mean that restaurants achieve profitability by a scientific analysis of floor space, the number of people that can fit around a table, how long the diners will stay on average and how much they will ultimately spend. This is why restaurant chairs are often surprisingly slim - a table that can seat 8 people is just much more profitable than a table that can only seat six. Despite this, the comfort of the diner is paramount, as people lingering to drink coffee and licquers is one of the mainstays of a restaurant's profit margin. Uncomfortable people will quickly leave as soon as their buttocks grow numb, so chairs in this setting are far more padded and sculpted to the human form than their hospital counterparts.

And then, there's the style. In this instance, the style can be crucial. A great deal of what people feel about an eating establishment is actually coloured by the 'feel' of the place itself. You could be serving Michelin Star quality food, but if you're serving it to diners sat on cold benches at 70s style formica tables, they're going to have a poor experience and you'll be back to flipping burgers before you know it.

Chairs therefore come in sumptious colours and fabulous designs that go to enhance the aesthetics of the place and therefore boost the restaurant's appeal.