Haworth prescribes a sleeping capsule for productivity
Privacy and napping pods might be familiar office perks in the creative and technology fields, but sleeping on the job is still considered, well, lazy. Although studies show that short naps, i.e. power naps, provide benefits like reducing stress and boosting brain power and memory, most offices haven't bought in. Office furniture experts Haworth want to create an office revolution and are releasing a futuristic looking sleeping capsule to encourage offices to encourage napping.
Based on research and designs by Marie-Virginie Berbet, the Calm Space is a small pod specifically for resting and intentionally designed to look serious. Employees can choose between 10 to 20 minute naps, which are regulated by preset sound and LED light cycles. An acoustic curtain in place of a door provides sound isolation and privacy without confinement.
Instead of the expected zen feel of sleeping pods, the Calm Space evokes functionality and efficiency. Berbet tells Mark Wilson of Co.Design,
“Science-fiction culture from novelist like Philip K. Dick or Aldous Huxley to ’60s dystopian architects like Archigram, Archizoom, or Haus-Rücker-Co inspired the formal concept. The spaceship shape expresses the idea of a stabilized environment, a space into which environmental parameters are precisely controlled to support at best the physiological needs.”
The Calm Space was presented at office design fair Orgatec 2012 and will be available in Europe for 15,000 euros.
Via: Co.Design, DesignTaxi
Image: Haworth
This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com