Challenge
Redesign the traditional futon bed toward a young user group, while challenging the mind-set concerning a multifunctional piece of furniture for a small area. The project was carried out as a group in a collaboration with a Danish furniture manufacturer - Karup A/S.

Approach
We wanted to design a piece of furniture consisting only of the futon mattress itself; 1: to fully exploit its many qualities, 2: to create a simplistic
furniture ? both esthetically and functionally ? and 3: to meet the price range of the manufacturer.
The idea behind the furniture is to combine characteristics of the Japanese design tradition with western preference for comfort and functionality.
The central method in this project was The Vision
Based Model, which consists of four layers of abstraction, within which you work on the solution throughout the process. It has the advantages of creating coherence between the concrete and abstract layers of the product; it incites that the different layers of abstraction is dealt with; and it creates a common goal for the group.
What made this project a success - in terms of the process and the final result - was, that while establishing a common goal for the group to work towards, we got as many futon mattresses as possible into our workspace to explore, and get a full understanding of the futon, while regularly evaluating ideas with our collaboration company.

Result
A futon furniture which primary function is a lounge furniture and - when the need is there ? it can be transformed into a guest bed through a simple and rapid transformation.
Nest was detailed to a degree that it was ready for production immediately after project delivery and since participating in the Cologne Furniture Fair in January ‘09 it has sold 3500 pieces across Germany, Switzerland, France and Denmark.