New Suspended Bed
After being shelved due to a busy year (having a baby and starting a new company took a little time) the new suspended beds are getting close to being almost ready. The tubing has (finally) been ordered, and the remaining parts should be machined sometime in January, depending on when the tubing actually arrives from the metal supplier. As soon as I get a little more time, the wood version will be following close behind.
posted by Scott Bennett on 12/21/2005
8 Comments:
I'm a little lost as to the purpose of the suspended bed design? It appears fully constrained, so it won't swing. It still has to be 'mounted' on the floor, so it's not much of a space saver, and no place for under-bed storage. With the extra structure well above the surface of the mattress, I can imagine that it would be very easy to bump knees and other appendages on cables etc. getting in and out of bed.
Also, as an engineer-cum-designer, I'm a little dubious of the phrase "Advanced engineering" for holding the matress platform completely rigid. Was the structure analyzed as a grouping of beams to estimate deflectin under load? Or was the CAD model imported into a Finite Element Analysis package and analyzed for its rigidity? And what is "completely rigid"? What kind of 'advanced engineering' practices were used?
Don't get me wrong, it's an intriguing design, but I feel that some of the ways in which 'engineering' is incorporated into the description may be misleading. If, on the other hand, you would like to perform mechanical analysis on the platform's structure, I may be able to help.
-simon
Thanks for the comments. Actually, it was indeed designed using FEA software (Cosmos to be exact). I'm an engineer, and before I started doing furniture, I worked on things that required much more difficult engineering (cars and airplanes). Of course it's not "completely rigid" per se; it will deflect under load just like anything else. The phrase was used because most people assume that the thing swings or moves, which it doesn't.
Purpose? Coolness primarily. :) If you just want to sleep, a mattress on the floor is as good as any bed.
reading through the comments about how the bed is held in check with the cables/rope I was wondering what it might be like if the posts
at either end of the bed had integral springs to give cushion to the suspension?
Interesting idea. I think an easier way of doing it would be to integrate springs into the top cables. The hard part would be getting the spring rate right, considering the wide range of loads you have to accomodate.
I couldn't tell, so this suspended bed is also attached to the floor? Why? Is this a structural imparative?
No, not attached. It just rests on the floor like any other bed.
hi,
just wondered if you were considering producing an aftermarket headboard of some type for those who want. Having slept with no wall or headboard at the top of my bed for some time i am well aquainted with how irritating it can be when all your pillows fall off the top in the middle of the night or when you try and sit up in bed.
neil
Hi Neil-
I considered it for a while, but never came up with a really satisfying solution. You're right, I slept on this bed for years, and I move around a lot, so my pillows were always falling off.
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