Dezeen x Forbo Flooring - 2024
The Comfort Cave is a peaceful quiet space that takes its occupants to their evolutionary home: the cave. Psychologically, a space that surrounds you with solid wall on three sides and a roof, with the entrance facing the front evokes the feeling of safety.
The Comfort Cave has a ceiling made from organically cut Marmoleum strips glued back-to-back. Low brightness LED strip lights are installed between these strips to imitate glowing grottos, especially when set on soft breathing setting. These strips minimise reverberation in the cave.
In this cave there are three private coves with ergonomic reclined seats in them. Made from cnc milled plywood, they’re clad with furniture linoleum on the seat and sides. A flexible goose neck dimmable lamp is on the right side for guests to use for reading, while a shelf below it holds their phone or book if they wish to take a nap. A tambour roof shutter made by gluing plywood strips to the flexible Furniture linoleum can be slid down, deepening the peaceful darkness inside each cove.
For the floor, we’ve chosen to use Acoustic Linoleum to ensure the space is as quiet as possible. This linoleum goes up the wall to form the silhouette of a mountain landscape.
For the front wall there is a faux beam behind which is a glass skylight or grow lights (depending on building’s geographical location) which provides natural sunlight. And hanging from this beam are beautiful indoor plants which purify the air.
To have an enhanced multisensory result, there are quiet fans behind the beam for circulating air and creating a natural breeze. Mounted to the ceiling we have hidden speakers that play a variety of soothing music and/or ambient sounds such as rainfall, thunder, a crackling fireplace, ocean waves, cowbells, wooden windchimes, a mountain stream, etc.
The four walls and ceiling of the room would be constructed from fibre cement board with dense rockwool insulation for sound dampening. Surfaces not covered by Marmoleum would be painted. We also chose to clad the outside wall up to 1metre with Marmoleum in a mountain landscape outline to improve the aesthetics in case this room is placed in the middle of the building. The entry is through an acoustic door with a door closer to keep out noise. Next to the door there is a rectangle of bulletin board which the management of the building can pin a booking sheet on. This allows users to select slots in which to use the space preventing any interruptions to their relaxation by opening doors, and equitable sharing of the resource for everyone. The designs are CNC ready and simple to fabricate encouraging high uptake among a variety of buildings.
All in all, the warm comforting tones of Marmoleum products combined with the cosy shapes and furniture in the Comfort Cave would transport users to a beautiful tranquil sanctuary, where they can take some time off, read a book, take a nap or just meditate for a while.
