SleepBox represents a contemporary furniture, designed for the demands of an increasingly urbanized environment. A human-scale object, which creates a space of comfort and relaxation within airports, offices or other semi public areas. The hard and uniform shell excludes the exterior and at the same time creates a soft and smooth interior. The project was designed by Caspar Lohner and supervised by Manuel Kretzer and Mathias Bernhard at the Chair for Computer Aided Architectural Design, ETH Zürich and realized in collaboration with Kläusler Acrylstein AG.

The free-form shell is made from HI-Macs, an extremely robust solid surface material, which can be thermoformed and visually seamlessly connected. The necessary MDF molds were produced on a three axis CNC mill at ETH Zürich’s Raplab and the flat HI-Macs sheets then formed into shape using vacuum. After the material cooled down it exhibited the same properties as before deformation and could be further processed similar to wood. The eleven individual pieces were finally glued together to create a single homogeneous object.
Design: Caspar Lohner
Supervision: Mathias Bernhard, Manuel Kretzer
Contribution: Andreas Aeschbacher, Vedren Brasnic, Nathalie Pietrzko, Bastian Schläpfer, Ankita Thaker, Alain Weber, Viviane Weber
Chair for Computer Aided Architectural Design Prof. Dr. Ludger Hovestadt