Atelier Starzak Strebicki

City mattress - Layoff, Gdynia Design Days 2014, City+ 5.30.60

If the mattress was sold in Ikea, it would be named LAYOFF. It is thus a perfect example of upright and needed architecture of unwinding. Its authors decided not to worry about our souls but chose to take care of our shoulders and legs. Happily it’s free of charge when one wants to stretch their legs on the mattress. Most importantly however, now it is possible to do all of these outdoors, in public spaces of the city. When everyone nowadays is challenged to meet the expectations to be active and ready - as spectators of ads, involved citizens, vigorous interlocutors, energetic consumers, eager runners or intense users of new technologies, it is important to have a place where one can simply give a sigh of relief: uff. Everyone can relax and from whatever one wants, while stretching in search of an ideal position. Someone once said that it all resembles digging in sand on the beach; digging through, smoothing the surface and then drilling in sand with your back and hips in order to find the most comfortable backrest. There must be something in it. Such a mattress is a totally different match between us and the city. And if mattresses run short, it is possible to do them by yourself. Designers used accessible materials and attached the instruction how to assembly an urban mattress.