HIMACS: SleepBox

SleepBox represents a contemporary and organic piece of furniture, designed for the demands of an increasingly urbanized environment. A sinuous life-sized object which creates a place of comfort and relaxation within airports, offices or other semi-public spaces, providing peace and quiet in busy urban environments. The solid, smooth and uniform shell is made of HIMACS, and contains a leather covered mattress.

The project was designed by Caspar Lohner at the Chair for Computer Aided Architectural Design [CAAD], Department of Architecture, ETH Zurich, supervised by Mathias Bernhard and Manuel Kretzer and produced in collaboration with Kläusler Acrylstein AG, who is the exclusive distributor for HIMACS in Switzerland.

The free-form shell is made from HIMACS, the architect choose the material thanks to its extraordinary properties: it’s extremely robust, but it can bethermoformed and visually seamlessly connected – which was essential for this project.

Caspar Lohner was in charge of each stage – from design to fabrication – of his first project using Solid Surfaces. He was both managing the project but also producing it with a team of students from the Department of Architecture, ETH Zurich with constant assistance of Kläusler Acrylstein, who supported with their expertise and technical resources. “Every day was a challenge for me, but when something didn’t work, we tried and tried again until it was resolved. I learnt a lot about HIMACS fabrication possibilities thanks to this project” says the designer.

The necessary MDF moulds were produced on a three axis CNC milling machine at ETH Zürich’s in-house facilities Raplab. The flat HIMACS sheets then were thermoformed into shape using a vacuum membrane press. After the material cools down it exhibits the same properties as before and can be further processed in a similar way to wood. The eleven individual pieces were finally glued together to create a single seamless homogeneous object.

SleepBox will be exhibited from 17th to 21th January at Swissbau 2012, the most important meeting point for the construction and real-estate industry in Switzerland and one of the biggest specialist exhibitions in Europe.

Swissbau 2012 (Trendwelt Bad)

Stand Kläusler Acrylstein – HIMACS

Hall 2.2 – Stand A40

17th – 21st January 2012

Basel, Switzerland