Mattress Forum

I had written this post a few weeks back. I had intended to edit and post it but got busy.

Your post reminded me of it so this is a good place to post it.

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Food For thought

I was recently reading a book on Industrial Design (I found it in a pile of freebie books a neighbor was giving away). 

The book is entitled, "The Origin of Things, Sketches, Models, Prototypes”, by Thimo te Duits (ed). This is a book accompanying an exhibition by the same name in 2003 at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam.

The book is about industrial design. That is to say, objects designed for mass production. At the beginning is an interview of Wim Gilles. The interview winds down discussing ‘generic types’, recognizing things that have a specific structure. Designers must know this, as a car that doesn’t look like a car will not sell. The interview concludes with talk of chairs.

The interviewer asks:

"To talk about chairs is automatically to talk of ergonomics."

Wim Gills replies:

"[I] am very firm on that point. Chairs are,  by definition, not ergonomic. You can never sit well in them, because the chair forces us to adapt to a position. You have to keep moving. It is absolutely not comfortable. You have to stay put. We are not made to sit in chairs. You are supposed to squat on your haunches on the ground.  A chair is a cultural thing. You have to learn to sit. There is not a single chair that is ergonomically sound."

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There may be a point here for beds too. I wonder if the common bed… a more or less solid mass of foam and/or springs is an appropriate ergonomic design for sleeping.

It appears that the purpose of all the springs and foams are to allow the mattress to adjust to an individual’s body weight and volume. However,  is vertical compliance the best method of achieving this? What about a bed made of more loosely aggregated materials that can be more readily altered to conform to a body?

It seems the ergonomic difficulty many face is in finding a sleeping system that adjusts on the fly to different body positions and one that does not demand the user to rigidly conform to a particular sleeping position in order to achieve comfort.  Perhaps the bed should more fully conform to the sleeper.

There’s room for new thinking as regards approaching this design problem. I know in shopping for a mattress, we are more or less constrained to the efforts of industrial manufacture and design. I wonder if we are stuck on an inherited generic design that is sorely lacking in the fundamentals. We go into mattress departments and are confronted with these great slabs. What about other possibilities?

I think of an infant sleeping snuggled against her mother’s breasts...

Your post is a great reminder of how important it is sometimes to move outside of "programmed thinking", "consensus ideas", and "marketing hype" when it comes to finding something (like a mattress) that fits our own unique needs.

Phoenix

Since she is selling these things I think her opinion is biased.  I tried a buckwheat pillow and hated it.

I do try to think outside of the box.  Just because someone else likes it doesn't mean I will either.  We are all unique individuals.....

lol