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.<\/p>\n
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 Kl\u00e4usler Acrylstein AG, who is the exclusive distributor for HIMACS in Switzerland.<\/p>\n
The free-form shell is made from HIMACS, the architect choose the material thanks to its extraordinary properties: it\u2019s extremely robust, but it can bethermoformed and visually seamlessly connected \u2013 which was essential for this project.<\/p>\n
Caspar Lohner was in charge of each stage \u2013 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 Kl\u00e4usler Acrylstein, who supported with their expertise and technical resources. \u201cEvery day was a challenge for me, but when something didn\u2019t work, we tried and tried again until it was resolved. I learnt a lot about HIMACS fabrication possibilities thanks to this project\u201d says the designer.<\/p>\n
The necessary MDF moulds were produced on a three axis CNC milling machine at ETH Z\u00fcrich\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Swissbau 2012 (Trendwelt Bad)<\/p>\n
Stand Kl\u00e4usler Acrylstein – HIMACS<\/p>\n
Hall 2.2 \u2013 Stand A40<\/p>\n
17th \u2013 21st January 2012<\/p>\n
Basel, Switzerland<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"template":"","projects_category":[1165],"projects_line":[1146],"class_list":["post-6930","projects","type-projects","status-publish","hentry","projects_category-himacs","projects_line-himacs"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n