Nomadic Interiors: Travel with a Hotel Room on Your Back

Fashion, travel and interior design come together in a series of wearable furnishings commissioned by the Textielmuseum in the Netherlands. Created for an exhibition that examines a century of textiles in Dutch interiors, the collection by Studio Makkink & Bey presents the designers’ interpretation of the ‘rooms of the future,’ wherein furniture is detached from physical space.

The series is both a celebration of the striking minimalism of Dutch textiles, and a commentary on the disconnect between ‘ideal interiors’ and what most people are able to realistically afford. This collection of nomadic interiors is part of a larger exhibition taking a look at the usage of fabric in Dutch households in seven distinct time periods over the past 100 years. The designers displayed fashionable, magazine-spread-worthy ideals contrasted by images of real single-room dwellings inhabited by working-class families of the time.

Studdio Makkink & Bey clearly envisions a future in which settling into a comfortable long-term home is no longer the norm, and people must be prepared to move their belongings to a new location at any moment. The series of easily transportable furnishings includes ‘vouwplats,’ a knit mattress that can be used as a chair when rolled up, supported by a wooden frame that makes it wearable like a hiking pack.

‘Warmtekleed’ is a wooden basket containing a combination rug/tablecloth. When turned upside down with the handles out, it becomes a table or stool. And in case the people living in this somewhat dystopian future still have the luxury of caring about privacy, there’s also ‘Vensterlicht,’ a flexible room divider that folds up like an umbrella.

It may not be as compact and lightweight as modern camping equipment, but the series makes an interesting case for portable furnishings fit for a traveler’s lifestyle in any era.