Our latest lookbook explores how futons and daybeds can offer a tempting spot for relaxation in different residential interior settings.
By providing a place to sit, lie down or take a nap with a compact footprint, the humble futon, and its more sophisticated cousin the daybed, can be a useful tool for interior designers.
Our selection of projects below includes various ideas for how they can be deployed, from corridors and cosy reading nooks to living-room centrepieces.
This is the latest in our lookbooks series, which provides visual inspiration from Dezeen’s archive. For more inspiration, see previous lookbooks featuring sculptural coffee tables, statement rugs and oversized sofas.
Longhouse, Australia, by Partners Hill
A plushy daybed next to a woodburning stove provides a warm spot to rest in the living room of this sprawling home and restaurant in the Victorian bush, designed by architecture studio Partners Hill.
The base is made from Australian cypress pine, while the cushion’s pale blue is intended to invoke summery blue skies even in the depths of winter.
Find out more about Longhouse ›
North Bank, UK, by Elliot Architects
A futon languidly festooned with sheepskin rugs, throws and cushions occupies a corner of the double-height living, dining and kitchen area of this barn-like house in north-east England’s Tyne Valley designed by Elliot Architects.
It is nestled in the crook of a large square window, providing views of the surrounding countryside and ample natural light for reading.
Find out more about North Bank ›
Daunt’s Albatross, USA, by Home Studios
In the Koda Suite of the Daunt’s Albatross boutique hotel in Montauk, New York, a chunky daybed hides behind a linen curtain.
It forms part of Brooklyn-based Home Studios’s attempt to create the feeling of a “remote family home” through its overhaul of the former motel.
Find out more about Daunt’s Albatross ›
Poirot’s Bijou Apartment, UK, by Intervention Architecture
Poirot’s Bijou Apartment – named because it occupies a space in the London building in which Agatha Christie’s fictional moustachioed detective lived – demonstrates how the daybed can be a space-saving device.
Intervention Architecture created a bespoke plywood piece that can double up as a sofa, store flatpack stools and even wheel forwards to support the bottom end of a fold-down double bed.
Find out more about Poirot’s Bijou Apartment ›
Apartment A, Belgium, by Atelier Dialect
Designed by Belgian studio Atelier Dialect, this ultra-luxe Antwerp apartment features two daybeds. In the living room, a black leather De Sede DS-80 contrasts with the room’s cool, hard, cement-washed surfaces.
Another huge, grooved daybed upholstered in brown velvet, designed by Jonas Van Put, occupies a raised platform behind a gauzy white curtain in the snug.
Find out more about Apartment A ›
Mount Tobias holiday home, USA, by IDSR Architecture
ISDR Architecture founders Todd Rouhe and Maria Ibañez de Sendadiano designed their own custom daybeds for their holiday home in the Catskills.
The daybeds occupy a brightly lit mezzanine loft space and are dressed with cushions and rugs from Danish brand Vipp.
Find out more about this Mount Tobias holiday home ›
Nova Residence, USA, by Harding Huebner
Nova Residence, a hillside house in North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains designed by local architecture studio Harding Huebner, contains possibly the most famous daybed of all time.
Set among several other modernist and mid-century furniture pieces in the open-plan living area is a Mies van der Rohe Barcelona daybed, whose tan colour contributes to a palette intended to mirror the terrain outside.
Find out more about Nova Residence ›
Television Centre Penthouse, UK, by Waldo Works
Design studio Waldo Works pursued a retro aesthetic with the interiors for this penthouse apartment in London’s 1960s Television Centre.
In one section of the corridor, a tall shelving unit carrying leafy plants screens two pixel-print daybeds, forming an unexpected reading nook or children’s play area.
Find out more about Television Centre Penthouse ›
This is the latest in our lookbooks series, which provides visual inspiration from Dezeen’s archive. For more inspiration, see previous lookbooks featuring sculptural coffee tables, statement rugs and oversized sofas.