3.5 million people in the USA are likely to experience homelessness. Many of them are forced to sleep on the streets without any comfortable place to sleep and no place to store personal belongings. The goal of our project was to create a light, portable, and comfortable place where one can rest, and somewhere to store personal belongings.

We did our research by going to two homeless shelters and talking to the staff about the various challenges that the homeless population faces. We also had two people who work with the homeless visit the studio, one a medical doctor who treats up to 500 homeless individuals. The other is an outreach worker for Bridge Over Troubled Water, a place for 18-24 year olds who are homeless, or at risk of being homeless.

For our first iteration we created a sleeping bag that was attached to a jacket with straps holding it in. This sleeping bag had many different pockets where one could put stuff, this also included a tarp. We didn’t feel that we had enough storage so we decided that in the next iteration, that we would create something with more storage space.

For our second iteration we made a bed that could open up with multiple compartments inside, and a place to store belongings. This design we felt was too bulky, and would not be very portable and easy to carry.

For the third iteration we came up with a telescoping bed with a large storage drawer to stow belongings. This bed we created was also very light and portable, and can be carried like a backpack.