Impress the chicks with this $1.7 million bed

When we got this news release today from Amsterdam-based Universe Architecture, we knew we had to show our readers so they could forward it to their favourite Sault alpha males.

The firm's founder, some guy named Janjaap Ruijssenaars, has introduced the world's first floating bed (shown).

It's held up by magnets.

We especially like the part where they explain that they've designed the thing so the magnetic field on top of the bed won't erase your credit cards.

Cool!

Except that the 1.2 million Euro price tag ($1.7 million Canadian at today's rates) ensures that most of us won't have any credit left to wipe out.

They also offer a 1:5 scale model of the bed for just 115,000 Euros, but who'd pay $164,000 Canadian to have your feet hanging out of bed? *********************** World premier of floating bed by Dutch architect Janjaap Ruijssenaars

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands, July 3 - Conventional furniture is in contact with the earth through gravity. Floating Bed overcomes this fundamental power and falls towards the sky.

Four thin cables assure its motionless position and form the only contact with the ground.

Click here for a closer look Thanks to the smart use of permanent magnetic material Floating Bed can carry a load of 900 kilogram.

With a floating distance of 40 cm. one can think of different functions such as a bed, sofa, Japanese dining table, display for products or as a base for a floating pavilion.

The magnetic field on top of the Floating Bed is strongly reduced, so bank cards will not be erased. Architect Janjaap Ruijssenaars (33) worked for six years with several specialists, under which Bakker Magnetics, on the development of Floating Bed.

It is a project that only recently reached its technical realizability. Floating Bed had its world premier in June 2006 with the presentation of the scale model (1:5) at the Millionaire Fair in Kortrijk (Belgium) and at the 100% Design Fair in Rotterdam (the Netherlands).

The concept and the different uses are registered and protected by designer Janjaap Ruijssenaars. The shown object here can be seen as the captured form used by Stanley Kubrick in the 1968 movie '2001: A Space Odyssey'.

The monolith, as Stanley Kubrick and science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke suggest, must have been made by other powers than those responsible for the usually circular planetary bodies and other more liberal forms, such as organisms.

The rectangle as a metaphor for the existence of intelligent life. The subtitle of Floating Bed is '2001: A Spaed Oddity'. Guiding prices:

Floating Bed 1:5 - EUR 115.000 Floating Bed 1:1 - EUR 1.200.000

Janjaap Ruijssenaars (1973) is architect (Master of Science) and founder of Universe Architecture. His work includes urban planning, architecture and design. By reflecting these professions on one another, fascinating new ideas and forms emerge.

This Floating Bed is an intriguing example of this process.

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