No more crashing on the floor. Russian invention lets travelers sleep with dignity, even in departure lounges
Would you spend the night in this? The Sleepbox at the Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow resembles a vending machine from afar.We figured tourist lodgings in expensive cities couldn’t get more “basic” than capsule hotels.We figured wrong.
A Moscow company is now marketing “Sleepboxes” — freestanding, mobile boxes with beds inside — for travelers stranded overnight, or those in need of a quick snooze. The Sleepboxes are meant to be installed in airports — even at departure lounges — and rented for 30 minutes to several hours at a time.
A Sleepbox is currently installed at the Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow.
“We travel a lot and many times we faced a problem of rest and privacy in airports,” says co-designer Mikhail Krymov of design firm Arch Group, who together with Alexei Goryainov came up with the idea of Sleepbox. “And as we are architects, we like to think of solutions.”
Measuring 1.4 meters wide, two meters in length and 2.3 meters in height, Sleepbox’s star feature is a two-meter-long bed made of polymer foam and pulp tissue that changes bed linen automatically.
It also comes with luggage space, a ventilation system, WiFi, electric sockets and an LCD TV.
The model unveiled in Moscow is a “hostel” version of the Sleepbox, which includes an additional bunk bed and fold-up desk.