Room in a Box: Bedroom Cube by Dan Hisel
Some people walk into unfilled apartments for rent and find it impossible to envision living in them – others see a blank slate to be filled with creative possibilities. For those in either camp, this self-contained, twelve-piece prefabricated room cube is a great plug-and-play solution.
The component parts of the Z Box by Dan Hisel are made large enough to be few in number, but small enough to carry up winding stairs and slot through conventional human-scale doorways.
Once on site, assembly is relatively simple and low-impact – the all-in-one, self-contained bedroom module can be positioned wherever you want it within an open-plan layout, creating space within but also shaping space around it. In addition to color and texture cues, the structure pulls back at the base to make it feel more like the box is a floating element within the dwelling, not a permanent built-in object.
Curtains pull back to reveal a beautiful wooden bedroom (which would work great as a study, library or other meditative space, too), while modern wire mesh gives it a sense of security and autonomy when viewed from the rest of the residence. There is shelving inside and outside as well as nooks for pets, slots for shoes, diffused lighting and other elements making the most of each square inch displaced by the box.
“The Z-Box solves two problems facing the owners of a newly renovated, yet wide-open loft: where are we going to sleep? (ZZZ…) and where are we going to put all this stuff? The solution comes through an act of amalgamation wherein the functions typically performed by several disconnected pieces of furniture are combined, cooked down, and distilled into a carefully carved block of perforated steel, polycarbonate, and Douglas Fir.”
“The ambiguous situation with respect to the identity of the Z-Box (it is simultaneously one thing and several) is further enhanced by the lights within its walls, which, with the flick of a switch, transform the box from prismatic steel cube into glowing lantern. “
