Of all the things in the world I could be reclining in at any given time, a hammock and a bathtub top my list of preferred options. So you can imagine how chuffed I was when I recently discovered that ‘hammock tubs’ are a thing.
Seriously, they are. They might not be a common sight, sure, but they do exist in the realm of designer bathroom furniture. I read about it in Rogue Living magazine. As the name suggests, they’re basically a tub in the shape of a hammock, except they’re made of carbon fibre rather than woven fabric (although I daresay there’s a Gore-Tex version on the market for the more adventurous).
Maybe this is old news. I mean, the magazine was one that was lying around in a waiting room, so it could have been from several years ago. Even so, I have to admire the ingenuity of bathroom designers. It can’t be easy dreaming up new takes on bathroom furniture – I mean, how much can you really depart from the standard blueprint for a toilet?
Probably more than most people would imagine, now that I think about it. It’s true that there are distinct variations on the toilet around the world; we just tend to take for granted that there’s only one way that object should look. All it would take is for a few people to take a design risk… the same goes for kitchen renovation. Designers, Melbourne ones in particular, could surely come up with new ways to integrate a cooktop, but it would take some early adopters in order for it to catch on.
Granted, safety might be more of an issue in the kitchen than it is in the bathroom. A gas cooker embedded in the floor, for example, might present a fire danger, not to mention a trip hazard. A hammock tub, on the other hand, seems relatively risk free, short of spilling bubble bath all over the floor and slipping over on it.