What if instead of homes we just had beds?

Hypothetically, you can get everything you need a day outside of your home. There are activities, food, places to relax, places to work, etc. But there is nothing like sleeping in your own bed...

Hypothetically, you can get everything you need in a day outside of your home. There are activities, food, places to relax, work, etc. But there is nothing like sleeping in your own bed at the end of a long day. What if instead of having homes with kitchens, bathrooms, living rooms, etc., all we had was a bed that we went to and slept in at the end of the day and we got everything else outside of our home?

This question originally came to mind because I wondered how little space people could take up. If everyone had enough money to eat out three times a day, go to work, enjoy some activities, and perhaps enjoy some quiet time on their own then all they’d need is a bed. Let’s do the math.

If everyone had a bed that resembled the pod hotels in Japan, each person would need approximately 2.3 square meters of space. If you had a snug 1x1 meter hallway between the pods then you could fit two pods across from each other within that hallway in a small 5.6 ((2.3 x 2) + 1) square meter area. There are approximately 2.8 million people in the lower mainland which is very approximately defined by the edges of the picture below.

We’re a growing population so let’s plan for the future by saying there are actually 3 million people. If 2 people can fit in a 5.6 square meter area then 3 million people can fit in a 1.5 million x 5.6 square meter area. This comes out to 8.4 square kilometers. If all each person has in their ‘home’ is a bed, we can fit 3 the entirety of the lower mainland in 8.4 square kilometers.

Let’s split that up into 4 separate buildings, each with 2 floors. 8.4 / 4 / 2 = 1.05 square kilometers. Each green square on the map below represents approximately how large an area that is.

With this lifestyle, if your friends lived in the same building as you, in which there are 750,000 people to meet, you could reach any of your friends within a 10-minute walk. The floors would likely smell rancid, the buildings would not pass fire protocol, and depending on the number of washrooms needed we might need up to double the space we’ve mentioned above but we would indeed not be taking up a lot of space.

Now the only other things we need are some food, activities, a place to work, and other services to keep society running. What do you think? If you had the resources to spend 16 hours a day out and about and your pod was just a place to sleep, do you think you could do it? Would it be fun? What would change?

This is the first of hopefully main posts where I explore totally ludicrous ways of life that ideally encourage creative thinking around the places we live, work, and spend time with others.

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