Sleep Studio investigates the indeterminate realm of the unconscious to explore new forms of architecture. After reimagining a traditional sleeping unit (bed) as an interface with the unconscious, individual sleep pods were finally agglomerated into protypical collective sleeping spaces.

Prototype #1: The student dormitory consists of a mobile preparation module, equipped with showers, lockers and change rooms, which leads to the pod entry dock. Once ensconced in a sleep pod, students ascend (with the help of an automated winch system and a helium filled region) as they nod off. The altitude of the floating pods is computer-controlled to relate to the level of consciousness of the user inside (the higher up the less brain activity). To passers by, the sleeping pods taken as a whole produce a kind of map of the collective consciousness of the student body at any given time.

Prototype #2: In the Dream Lab the same sleeping pods float between different “dreamscapes” – artificial environments which correlate to the different levels of consciousness the users float between. Behind the scenes, sleep scientists control the soporific atmosphere of the dreamscapes to study the effect on floating subjects and their reverie.

PROTOTYPE #1: Student dormitory