Forget wood slats or heavy inner springs. The bed of the future is made out of plastic and it integrates into the room in space-age style. Designed by the Austrian team of WHO CARES?!, Ice Bed, inspired by an igloo, was a custom job for a client and features the advanced composite material DuPont Corian.
The bed, despite sitting in the middle of the room, is attached to the wall, creating a sense of security from an unconventional source—most people would rather have their headboard against a wall instead. A built-in LED light allows the client to modulate the lighting conditions in the room, from a cool white reading light to a sultry red. The structure that connects the bed to the wall also includes two types of storage areas, one for exhibition and one for hidden storage.
Corian, which was introduced in 1967, is composed of aluminum-tri-hydrate, pigments and acrylic resins (PMMA) and was designed as a multi-purpose design surface. It has a matte surface and can be used to construct shapes virtually seamlessly because the joints can be inconspicuously glued together. It is also non-porous, making it easy to keep clean, and it is easy to build on edges with the material and make them look thicker.
The Ice Bed also seems to be mattress-agnostic. Johann Szebeni of Who Cares wrote in an email, "Our client and user of the Icebed has his favorite mattress. He use this kind of matress for many years. So we designed the Icebed that you can use your own loved mattress."
The Ice Bed offers an intriguing mixture of seclusion and openness, taking every part of the room under its wing and offering functionality usually lent to other furniture. Hopefully we will begin to see other multi-purpose beds like this on the consumer market in the future.