Designer creates floating bed (Reuters) Updated: 2006-08-08 14:53
A young Dutch architect has created a floating bed which hovers above the
ground through magnetic force and comes with a price tag of 1.2 million euros
($1.54 million).
A
floating bed created by Dutch architect Janjaap Ruijssenaars in an
illustration released August 5, 2006. [Reuters] |
Janjaap Ruijssenaars took inspiration for the bed -- a sleek black platform,
which took six years to develop and can double as a dining table or a plinth --
from the mysterious monolith in Stanley Kubrick's 1968 cult film "2001: A Space
Odyssey."
"No matter where you live all architecture is dictated by gravity. I wondered
whether you could make an object, a building or a piece of furniture where this
is not the case -- where another power actually dictates the image,"
Ruijssenaars said.
Magnets built into the floor and into the bed itself repel each other,
pushing the bed up into the air. Thin steel cables tether the bed in place.
"It is not comfortable at the moment," admits Ruijssenaars, adding it needs
cushions and bedclothes before use.
Although people with piercings should have no problem sleeping on the bed,
Ruijssenaars advises them against entering the magnetic field between the bed
and the floor.
They could find their piercing suddenly tugged toward one of the magnets.
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