HOUSE OF DREAMS
Cherishing the barrier between day and day
A flock of sheep that leisurely pass by
One after one; the sound of rain, and bees
Murmuring; the fall of rivers, winds and seas,
Smooth fields, white sheets of water, and pure sky —
I’ve thought of all by turns, and still I lie
Sleepless; and soon the small birds’ melodies
Must hear, first utter’ d from my orchard trees,
And the first cuckoo’s melancholy cry.
Even thus last night, and two nights more I lay,
And could not win thee, Sleep, by any stealth:
So do not let me wear to-night away.
Without thee what is all the morning’s wealth?
Come, blessed barrier between day and day,
Dear mother of fresh thoughts and joyous health!
– William Wordsworth
We believe that a home consist of places, each with their own meaning, unique roll and history. Therefore, we want to dive into the story that comes with every place. We uncover their meaning and strengthen the bond between user, usage and function.
How do we do it? We are conducting a large-scale research in which we will delve into every place one at a time. The first place we picked is the bedroom, to us this is the most private, intimate and poetic room of all. It’s the place where we (day)dream about our desires, ambitions, insecurities, doubts and wishes.
During the Dutch Design Week 2023 we will share an insight into our study on the bedroom. Our exposition will tell the story of this interesting place and its past, present, and our perspective on its future. The exposition will symbolize the kick-off of our research on meaningful places.
Humans spend more than 90% of their time in indoor spaces. These indoor spaces affect essential elements of our lives, such as wellbeing, health and happiness.
At Converse LAB we noticed that the architectural design of indoor spaces is often based on intuition and feelings rather than scientific evidence.
We state that when you give meaning to a space, it becomes a place that revolves around the user and its behaviour. By using evidence-based design it becomes possible to create places that contribute to healthier and overall happier residents.
Ultimately, we state that when you bring together these meaningful places instead of spaces you will be able to design a true home.
To emphasize the difference between space and place we renamed the spaces that form our houses. We approach them as places and dive into their true meaning, their role, usage and their history.
The place of Introductions
The place of Introductions is the first space you encounter when you enter a building. It gives you a first impression of the residents and their home.
The place of Fire
The main function of the place of Fire is the preparation of food. One of the most important tools we use for this activity is fire. Besides that, the place of Fire has also become a central meeting place within the house, which connects people and invites them to interact, learn and expand their creativity. The way this modern central place brings people together is similar to the formerly known fireplace.
The place of Encounters
The place of Encounters is closely connected to the place of Fire, since it’s the place where we consume food. But that’s not the only reason. Just like the place of Fire this space brings people together. By sharing food and stories the people within this space get closer to one another.
The place of Rest
Every house needs a place where the residents can relax and recharge. The place of Rest provides a space where people can withdraw alone or sit with family and friends and entertain themselves by playing games, listening to music, watching tv or talk.
The place of Water
The place of Water is a space that is mainly used for personal care. Water plays a key role in the main activities like bathing, cleaning ourselves, relaxing and reflecting.
The activities in this place are often performed alone and while being undressed, which gives this room its private character and makes this one of the few rooms that possess a lock.
The place of Connection
Outdoor spaces like balconies, patios, loggias or backyards offer daylight, a view and fresh air. They also provide room for relaxing, recharging and connecting with people and nature. This happens both consciously and subconsciously.
There is no space with a bigger contrast then the bedroom. It’s the place where we start our days, but also end them. It’s the place where we fully expose ourselves during our most intimate interactions and retreat when we want to be by ourselves. It’s the place of terrifying nightmares and the sweetest dreams.
The word bedroom literally means: A room that is intended to contain a bed.
When we take a closer look, we discover that both bed and room are derived from the Proto-Germanic language. Bed comes from the word badja which means resting place and room originates from ruman which means space.
The main function of the bedroom is providing a sleeping space. Sleep is an essential part of our live, too less- or too much sleep affect our physical- and mental health, happiness and wellbeing. Different aspects of the physical space can influence the quality of our sleep.
Examples of aspects that influence our night’s rest are light, sound, temperature, density, colour, smell and touch. All these aspects can be designed, composed, calculated or manipulated by designers or architects to ensure that the user of a bedroom experiences the most optimal conditions for a night’s rest. But even when the circumstances are ideal, it’s the behaviour of a person that plays a key role in determining the eventual sleeping quality.
The only moment when we, as designers and architects, can influence people’s behaviour through design choices is when they are awake. By integrating technical requirements with the personal sleeping ritual of a resident. We hope to influence a person before they fall asleep as then they will be out of reach, subsided deep into dreams about their friends and family, ambitions, insecurities, sexual desires, doubts or wishes.
Since the prehistory, the overall appearance and meaning of the bedroom has been undergoing constant changes. As a matter of fact, with the development of humans, the sleeping space also evolved.
We chanced where we sleep, when we sleep and how long we sleep. Our current sleeping pattern derives from the 19th century, when the introduction of artificial lighting changed the sleeping landscape forever. This meant, after all, that the sunset no longer brought the end of our social and or work activities. We are currently at the brink of a new era, the digital age. We feel that, just as in the past this development will impact our bedrooms and the way we sleep. More often we see digital devices making an appearance in the bedroom. We scroll through our phones, watch something on the television or read an article on our tablets before we close our eyes to sleep. But it does not stop there.
In a digital landscape filled with cookies, user data and algorithms it sometimes feels as if our electronic devices know what we want, before we even want it. With the rapid development of AI and EEG it’s not weird to think that in a few years we can control our phones, electric cars or laptops with just our thoughts.
With our project the House of Dreams we intend to give a look into the bedroom of the future. During the Dutch Design Week, we will be offering a basal bedroom, a place where visitors can close their eyes for a bit and dream. You can dream about your desires, ambitions, insecurities, doubts and wishes. Your dreams inspire you, motivate you, confront you or move you. But most importantly though, your dreams are yours.
By giving visitors an opportunity to lay down an take a nap we want to collect and document our own analogue dream journal.
Simplicity
To us, the concept of the House of Dreams is clear: Spreading awareness and fuelling the debate on the privacy of our thoughts. We are doing this by designing the most basal and analogue form of a bedroom and compose our own dream journal.
Since we want to showcase a simple bedroom, it seemed appropriate to us to exclusively pick real and tangible materials and products. By staying close to the origin of the products we want to show the simplicity of our basal installation. Our goal is to pick our materials from Dutch soil. This contributes to the feeling of simplicity, safety and connection that we want to achieve with the House of Dreams. In addition to working with locally harvested products we are also working together with real craftsman. By combining real materials with expertise, we get closer and closer to the analogue and basal sentiment we want our visitors to experience.
Handcrafted traditional futons
The Futon Factorij is a Dutch family business specialized in the artisanal manufacturing of traditional futons. The business is run by Marius together with his two creative daughters Charlotte and Hendrike.
The company represents good and sensible products. Which is why they exclusively work with biological and certified materials. As real craftsmen they are continuously looking for new and innovative ways to improve their products and offer optimal comfort to their customers.
For the upcoming Dutch Design Week 2023 they are in for a new challenge. This time they will produce bedding containing only materials from Dutch soil. By reducing their range, they are forced to innovate, anticipate and think out of the box. The result is a brilliant selection of real materials. With these materials they will provide the House of Dreams with a mattress, futon, topper and pillows.
Reusing window frames
Every year we produce around 23 million tons of building waste in the Netherlands. As a major name in the manufacturing of skylights, VELUX Nederland takes action. By taking back used skylights they offer the possibility to give usable parts a second life.
To produce our House of Dreams we also will be using used window frames provided by VELUX. The frames are mined form Dutch buildings and therefor fit within our goal to only use materials and products harvested from Dutch soil.
VELUX offers the possibility to dismantle and process the used frames. This way they transform the frames into useful customized planks which we can use to design and construct the House of Dreams.