Made just prior to the turn of the century in 1590-1600, this Vredeman de Vries bed is among the most famous ancient beds in the world. This carved oak piece was originally painted and features stunning panels of marquetry. Currently housed in the British Galleries, this bed is best known for being quite enormous during its time, as it measures over 128 inches across. Shakespeare was so inspired by the bed that he makes a small mention of it in his infamous play ‘Twelfth Night.’

2. The Private Cloud

The Private Cloud is a German-designed and built bed that’s both simplistic and stylized. Notable for its use of curves and light wood finish, this bed was created to function like a rocking chair, as inhabitants can sway gently back and forth while they sleep.

3. BedUP

Designed by Decadrages and built to look as inconspicuous as possible, the BedUP is a space-saving bed that generations of cramped apartment-dwellers certainly wish they had around for personal use. Able to save up to 13 square feet of space in floor plan, the BedUP retracts into the ceiling when not in use.

4. Feel Seating System

Technically, this bed model is actually a regular seat, though it was designed with the idea of multiple uses in mind. The Feel Seating System can be contorted by the user and reworked into a variety of shapes, so one can sleep, lounge, or dangle any which way she likes. The model contains 120 spheres made of sofa-like material and covered with elastic fabric, and the bright colors in use help to make this a stunningly modern piece. Now they just need to make these into bunk beds so that all kinds of crazy rearrangements can be performed!

5. William Morris’ Bed

This early 17th century bed is remarkable more for its artistic influence than its actual design, though its remarkable craftsmanship has been well-preserved over the centuries. William Morris wrote a poem inspired by this bed, and his family was involved in its design, building, and accessorizing as well. In fact, Morris’ youngest daughter, May, designed the curtains and bed cover for her father’s artistically-inspiring piece of furniture.

6. Queen Victoria’s Bed

Queen Victoria, ill near the end of her life, had to be transferred from her typical bed to a smaller, single-size version for easier bedside care. Draped in a beautiful bed cover that was presented to the Queen as a gift from China for the marking of her Jubilee in 1897, this bed is also adorned with the Queen’s two favorite pieces that she always kept near her bed: a pocket watch that belong to Prince Albert, as well as a photograph of the Prince after his passing. Hubert von Herkomer would later paint the Queen’s deathbed portrait while her body rested on this bed in 1901, and the royal family would keep this bedroom and piece as a personal shrine for the next half-century.

7. The Melville Bed

Adorned with long, luxurious red drapes that hang nearly to the floor, the Melville Bed is better known for its ornamental display than the bed frame itself. Made in 1700 and commissioned by George Melville himself, this stunning piece of centuries-old furniture was initially designed for use in the Earl of Melville’s new home in Fife.

8. Louis XIV’s Bed

Louis XIV of France took many personal visits from important statesmen of the day back during the 1700s, and there was no better place than his personal bed chamber. The bedchamber was actually designed from 1701 to serve as the exact center of the palace, and even one of the United States’ founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin, visited the King in his bedchamber in 1778. This bed from Versaille has many red and gold elements, and is typically covered by thick drapes that only leave three small openings into the bed visible at any one time.

9. The Space Economizing Bed

This bed is the absolutely perfect bed for anyone who sleeps in this same specific position night after night. There’s not much else to say about this bed other than “don’t move an inch while you sleep!” Granted, if this was a top bunk on a set of wood bunk beds, the person at the bottom probably wouldn’t be very happy, but this piece gets style points for its unique (and humorous) take on modern bed design.

10. Float by Okooko

You may not be able to sail the seven seas in this bed, but you’ll want to after you take your first glance. Designed by David Trubridge for Okooko, the Float resembles an ancient sailing ship, and looks as though it could easily float on both clouds and water, though neither is actually possible. Trubridge incorporated elements from both historical boat designs as well as modern bed designs when crafting this piece, and this concept bed was voted the finest piece of bedroom furniture at the Furniture Fashion competition in New Zealand during its time on display.

11. The Lomme

The Lomme is probably an image that can define modern bed design in one glance. Shaped like an egg and featuring a smooth, white edifice reminiscent of Apple computer designs, the Lomme may look simple but its elegant nature masks its many features. Among them: a light therapy clock with alarm settings, a mattress massaging device, and a bed control unit that is actually an altered iPhone.

12. The Nappak

Need to take a quick nap but don’t have your bed around or a sleeping bag at the ready? The Nappak is the future of bed design for quick naps and portable carriage, as this piece is easily inflated and quickly stored. Plus, with an inflatable canopy-like cover, this is no ordinary air mattress picked up from your local department store, but something much greater.

13. The Rampbed

This bed may be designed for children, but let’s face it: any adult skater nerd would drool at the chance to sleep in this remarkably well-crafted piece. Beds designed specifically for kids are often overlooked for more adult fare, but this piece is certainly worth of inclusion on our list. Why? The bed doubles as a skate ramp and a sleeping area, but beyond that, look at the quality of the woodwork and other incredibly fun features, such as the skateboard wheels being used as drawer handles for the built-in storage units.

14. The Napshell

The item in the image above looks like it could be almost anything when not shown to scale, and this bed certainly looks closer to the handle for some futuristic iron than a place to sleep when first glanced. The Napshell, however, definitely won’t fit on an ironing board, though there really only is room for one on this bed. Designed for proper back posture and avoiding straight lines of any kind, this bed is the perfect addition to the bedroom of anyone who has recurring night terrors about right angles.

15. The Sonic Bed

Music nerds and rock stars finally have a bed that was specially designed for them. The Sonic Bed is unique in that it requires plenty of power to operate, 220 volts to be exact. This power won’t go to waste, however. All those volts will be feeding the speakers built into the indented bed frame, where sleepers will be deafened for sleep with pervasive noise production. It may sound startling and unsettling, but is done primarily to drown out noises outside the bed.

This museum created by the french architect JeanNouvel, displays some of the best art on planet Earth, and has exhibits of both contemporary and international artists. It contains over one thousand works by three hundred different artists.

Structure: BMW Welt, Munich
Architect: COOP Himmelblau
Year Finished: 2007

This building was designed to present some of the best cars in the world – the BMW. And was built for the customer experience in mind. The thinking was that one of the best car brands in the world deserves one of the best buildings – and it worked.

Structure: Addition to the Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, Missouri
Architect: Steven Holl
Year Finished: 2007

This museum was built on classical principals and is known for its extensive collection of Asian art. Time magazine listed it as #1 on the list “The 10 Best (New and Upcoming) Architectural Marvels” in 2007.

Structure: Cooper Union building, New York
Architect: Thom Mayne (Morphosis)
Year Finished: 2009

This curvy and “sexy” (as called by Time Magazine) is a school. Could you imagine going to school in a building like this? Everyday would be like a crazy tour of spectacular genius in architecture.

Structure: Parc de la Villette, Paris
Architect: Bernard Tschumi
Finished: 1987

Another great design in architecture from Paris. This one is a playground. An estimated 10 million people visit the park each year to take part in an array of cultural activities. This is a pretty good way to let your kids let go of some energy – don’t you think?

Structure: Yokohama Port Terminal, Japan
Architect: Foreign Office Architects
Year Finished: 2002

This was a project to “dream of.” It is looked at as “simplicity” but is far from that. Its shape is very irregular and the fluid and uninterrupted lines are folded like an origami into an unique structural system that allows its boarding level to connect to the city’s underground level – very cool.

Structure: Saint-Pierre church, Firminy, France
Architect: Le Corbusier
Year Finished: 2006 (from a design by Le Corbusier, who died in 1965)

This design was stalled for many years. It served many purposes – it was a secondary school, a shelter, and a Church. The construction began in 1971, and wasn’t even finished until 2006. Over 30 years of greatness in the making!

Article written by Laura. By day, Laura works for the Movebuilder.com

Scratch any architect, and you will find an artist. The “designer look” in a modern building, thanks to CAD and a new generation of truly inspired architects, extends to the foundations. Even the idea of flooring has now been incorporated into CAD and commercial software in dramatic and beautiful ways. This truly is the beginning of a new era, and most importantly, it’s a lot of fun.

The relationship between architecture and lifestyle is ancient. The earliest and simplest of buildings were based on hunter/gatherer and agrarian lifestyles. The most modern buildings are designed on a combination of aesthetics and functionality. The “designer look” actually is and always has been a hybrid.

The difference now is that CAD, the New Economy and technology have combined to fuel the inspirations of a generation of artists. The unparalleled growth of new design concepts in the last 20 years has set the stage for an even bigger revolution.

Lifestyle needs have changed drastically in the space of one generation. The home now has multiple functions and the conceptual chains of old suburban living are falling away. The new “designer look” can relate to any lifestyle. Modular buildings can create multiple living modes.

Product engineering is also going through a major revolution. If you can design something using CAD, you can build it or manufacture it. Vastly expanded creative capabilities are now the core power source for design inspiration.

One of the most glaringly obvious cases of this is the virtual explosion in new fabric designs and manufacturing capabilities. From Chinese fashion week to Saks Fifth Avenue was a major step for the fashion industry for computer-based designs, but for interior design fabrics the new design possibilities have already gone all the way to the manufacturing level.

The new “designer look” doesn’t actually have any limits. Even something as basic as a carpet can be turned into a true series of design options and visualized using special software for its environment. In the same way that architects have been freed from shoebox designs, interior designers have been released from visual clichés and stale design concepts.

Even furniture design has altered dramatically. The days when Bauhaus and the 60s were the last words in design concepts are well and truly over. If you want a “designer look” that is absolutely unique, custom-made and perfectly suited to the design of your home, you can get it.

There were major issues for industrial production in this phenomenon. Tacky, mass-produced rubbish not only looked terrible, but its actual production was also extremely wasteful, costly and inefficient. The goods may have been cheap, but the real cost is being borne at the end of the product life cycle.

That’s not the case with the new designs. Designer materials can now be costed throughout their entire life cycle, and production methodologies can now be tailored to produce extremely high quality goods cost effectively.

The “designer look” is here to stay. Lifestyles will never be the same again. If you’re a designer, welcome to the Promised Land. You will find that your talents are very much in demand, and that your inspirations are endless.

When you look at this amazingly organic walls you might start believing the one that built it is really passionate about walls, or is really OCD. But the fact is these crazy shaped walls are in fact the result of robots, and a highly advanced computer construction program, and they are able to curve the wall not only on two axis, but actually in a 3d fashion.

You may say the robot as a creation, is the exact aesthetic opposite of it’s work. The walls as you can see them are installed in cities like Venic and New York. The technology can be transported bare-bones shack-on-wheels structure from which the single arm arcs out to life and position the composing pieces into organic soft and incredible curves.

[via]

Following images courtesy of Matthew Carbone:

The center hosts these 3 main spaces:

1. Medical building for patient care and research. Featuring simple, functional interiors and a lego like exterior of slightly disorderly blocks.

2. A breezeway between the medical building and the higher profile stainless steel Life Activity Center. The breezeway provides a shaded seated area to enjoy the Las Vegas weather while avoiding direct sunlight. There is also a small cafe and it is method to experiencing the reflection garden to the east.

3. The Life Activity Center – this is the portion of the project that has and will receive most of the attention. It is also the most misunderstood. Patients are not treated in the space, nor do they ever really interact with it except for the facade.

[via]

The algae-producing airborne cities can be 100% emission-free and are capable of generating hydrogen gas without consuming land needed for crops or forests, no how about utopia, huh?

Yeah, you probably think this is only a pretty neat concept, that will never get built, but times are changing friend, and what you consider impossible today, may be accomplished tomorrow easily. So never say never to new ideas, aight?

According to the architects, “the output obtained by a farm with micro-seaweed would be superior to those made currently with farming means to produce biodiesel or bioethanol. This could be estimated at 1000 litres of hydrogen for 330 grams of chlorophyll per day whereas for example colza produces roughly only 1000 litres of oil per hectare . . . a hectare of seaweed could thus produce organically 120 times more biofuels than a hectare of colza, soya or sunflower.”

Talking Utopia, huh? Check this neat concept developed by Stefano Boeri.

Floating Void

Italian architect stefano boeri‘s proposal for the ‘contemplating the void: interventions in the Guggenheim Museum’ exhibition is ‘floating void’, in which he has imagined Frank Lloyd Wright’s Central Rotunda as an external space, floating above the Guggenheim Museum.

Floating Void

Floating Void

Beijing District

Today in the Utopia section of Archtopia, we’re going to talk a bit about a concept presented by SOM in Beijing. I’m sure you will find this appealing since the planet really need our care in the current situation, and this proposal shows consideration and pays attention to the nature needs, creating inhabiting green spaces.

Not so long ago SOM revealed the future plans for a new urban center in Beijing’s Dawangjing District that will feature an integrated heating and cooling solution designed to reduce energy use and carbon emissions. The new development will include a central park that utilizes a geothermal heat-exchange system to help passively heat and cool all of the district’s buildings, something like the roman heating system, I’d say.

Beijing District

The district will be positioned at about 11 kilometers from the Beijing Capital International Airport, and will include multiple public parks, cultural attractions and high-rise buildings that will welcome visitors to the capital city.

Part of the plan to minimize carbon emissions is to use the central park as a “sustainable engine” or geothermal heat-exchange, which would help to passively heat and cool the district buildings instead of using water and energy-intensive cooling towers.

Beijing District

The newly proposed urban district will have as well strong focus on public transportation, aiming to get 80% of residents and workers traveling by subway, streetcar, biking or walking. Multiple transit stations are proposed along the M15 subway line, which ends at the International Airport. A series of streetcar lines have also been proposed along with a vast network of bicycle lanes, which will help reduce car traffic.

Beijing District

[ SOM ]