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Those Crucial Workday Naps

Who hasn't longed for a much more comfortable way to sneak in those workday snoozes than propped on your desk, elbows strategically placed to hold up your snoring head? The brilliant Schlafgras (which means "Sleeping Grass") is the brainstorm of architecture students from the University of Stuttgart. The project (which, sadly, ended in October, 2005) was in connection with a research project to prove that short daytime naps improve concentration.

"Schlafgras" is based on a modular system, that allows for napping areas of different sizes. From using a single module within a regular office up to a "forest" made of grass everything is possible. While the outer parts of such a forest would only be suitable for sitting, its interior, protected by high, inflexible "stems", could offer the space for an intensive nap.

"Schlafgras" mainly consists of freely shapeable styrofoam. An easy to use mechanism makes it possible for the individual to arrange a personalized nap-landscape. In addition to the free choice of colour, it also offers individual landscape-modeling.

Because of this customizability, provided by the mechanism, the user can identify himself with his napping-furniture. After decreasing the "fears" of napping in a working environment, "Schlafgras" has the flexibility to adapt from creating an environment solely suitable for sitting to being primarily used for power-napping. "Schlafgras" was developed by Elena Haller, Julia Meisel, Martin Nowitzki and Hanni Schermaul.

And a hearty "Congratulations!" goes to Elena, Julia, Martin and Hanni: now, where do we buy one?? (Hat tip to Gizmodo.)

Posted on February 7, 2006

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