How do you use your bedroom? Is it your hang out space, storage room, study room, a place to sleep? Is it a combination of those things? Do you have to share your room with someone else? Bedrooms are typically designed simply, as rectangular rooms that include a window, a closet, and a door. The rest is a blank canvas for the owner to create a space that reflects his or her personality.
How do you work within the confines of the traditional rectangular bedroom? Do you alter the architecture of the room, the building, or do you devise creative solutions for the items and furniture that go into the room?
Let’s get started on the challenge to redesign your dream bedroom.
Good piece of advice: To get a sense of how to complete the steps in this challenge, check out other projects within DiscoverDesign.org!
Design Challenge Background
It is no secret that we all use our bedrooms for different purposes. The bedroom serves many functions. A bedroom can be a place to sleep, study, entertain friends, share, and relax. How do you combine these vastly different uses into one small space?
Design Challenge Brief
Your challenge is to redesign your bedroom and rethink how it should, or could, function as a multi-purpose space. What does a modern bedroom look like? Consider technology- does this space embrace technology or is this a space to unplug? If you share your bedroom with someone else, how can the space be designed to accommodate you and the other person’s needs and interests?
Design Program / Parameters
Your design must contain all the spaces and functions required for your general bedroom needs such as a bed, a place to store and organize clothing, light sources (e.g. natural and artificial), and an entrance to the bedroom.
The challenge is to consider and re-conceptualize these basic elements to rethink designs for new sleeping spaces, storage, organizing structures and systems for books, and other materials, access to outdoor spaces, a space to study, and a space to relax. Is this an active space, or a tranquil space?
Designs must also consider issues of sustainability and the environmental impact of your design. For example, how much energy does your space consume through electronics? Can you create a more energy efficient and cheaper way of powering or lighting the room?