Looking for a comfortable position? The Animi Causa Feel moves with you as you search for the perfect seat. It's made from 120 soft balls which are able to be arranged in an infinite number of ways. This ingenious design does away with rigid wood and metal, allowing your furniture to move with you, making it almost an organic life form.
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Animi Causa Fee - Sofa made from 120 soft balls
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Sofa Beds
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Shopping for a sofa bed can be a tricky game and with so many to choose from, where do you start? The futon was a popular choice in the past but due to their instability and problems of loosing shape over time, sofa beds are now a popular choice as they look and feel more like standard sofas whilst offering comfort and convenience.
As the name suggests, a sofa bed, or sleeper-sofa, typically is a couch which has underneath its seating cushions a metal frame and thin mattress that can be unfolded or opened up to make a bed. So a sofa bed is a piece of furniture that can be used both as a sofa, and as a bed. When the bed is required, simply pull the bed out from under the sofa and like magic, a bed is ready for sleeping. Many people buy a sofa bed to use for visitors coming to stay.
Unlike a standard futon couch which is made up of three separate components such as a mattress, cover and wood frame, the sofa bed is a single unit with an innerspring mattress built in.
Many sofa beds offer the added convenience of storage space where blankets, sheets, and pillows can be kept. Unique color schemes, contemporary styles and extreme functionality make sofa beds an excellent choice for homes that require an extra bed, perhaps for visiting guests.
When shopping for a sofa bed, there are a number of things to look out for or to consider. Firstly, it is highly recommended to consider the size of the sofa bed that will best suit you requirements. In other words, what is the purpose of the sofa bed? Is if it is a couple or an individual? This will determine the size of sofa bed you will buy i.e. king, queen, double or single. Room shape and size is also another important factor to take into consideration so measure your room and have the measurements to hand when shopping for a sofa bed to make sure it fits the room.
Comfort is going to be a very important selling point. You want the sofa to be both comfortable to sit and sleep on. Make sure to ask the furniture store to demonstrate the bed whilst you are there and test it out for comfort sitting and sleeping positions. Many cheap sofa beds have thin mattresses offering little support whilst sleeping causing back pain and discomfort so aim to get the thickest mattress you can to make sure your guest will be comfortable whilst sleeping on it. You will of course need pillows and sheets to fit the bed so bear this in mind.
Another important feature of the sofa bed is convenience so make sure you can pull the bed out smoothly. There is no point in buying a cheap sofa bed that you find a struggle to use.
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The Unrecognizable Home of the Future
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How the home of the future differs to where we live today is a thought that has been considered more and more over the last few years. Advancements in technology, as well as the means to power our houses by generating our own green energy, have meant that the architecture and design of future housing will also need to be adapted. Paradoxically, despite the increasing social awareness of being more energy conscious and self-sufficient, the home of the future is also destined to be a hive of technological dependency and alive with electricity. So will the future home be a hut of efficient simplicity, or a home insurance nightmare?
Of course, energy saving will no doubt be of utmost importance as the climate continues to change, and resources continue to run out. Companies existing today, such as Earthship, highlight that the key to an efficient home of the future is making sure that the design makes the most of the energy from the sun and the ground. At just four feet underground, the insulating temperature of the earth is significant enough to heat a home most of the year round. If extra heat is needed, sunlight is allowed in through large south facing roof-light windows in order to top-up. This could mean that the design of the home of the future will be mostly underground.
With the risk of growing populations driving up water costs, water conservation will also be of significant importance in the future. In a BBC interview in 2005, Christopher Sanderson of The Future Technology posits the idea that instead of using water to clean our homes (and selves) we will instead use sound waves. The technology is relatively simple: by concentrating low-frequency, high-energy sound waves on areas that are dirty can actually dislodge dust and grime by fluidizing it. Such equipment is already in use for contact lens cleaners, and is being tested in dishwashers and washing machines.
Over the past few years, Microsoft has frequently boasted what it thinks the home of the future will be like; and more specifically, how dependent on computer technology it might be. Advancements in GPS usage, similar to what has recently been incorporated in Google Maps, might be able to tell us where our postman is on the round to give us an estimate of when he will arrive. Of course, they also suggest that our homes will consist of a sort of technological brain, with mirrors that can inform us of whether clothes that match with a specific garment are in the wash, as well as pin boards that absorb the information that is attached to them, such as phone numbers and addresses.
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