The ultimate bed for Goldilocks

A Tauranga-based furniture company has designed a bed which would have made Goldilocks' life a whole lot easier.

No more worrying about whether mother or father bear's bed is too firm or too soft - Design Mobel is filing patents on a "sleep system" it says can be adjusted to suit individual preferences.

As well as being able to tailor the mattress and base, the bed can be tilted to support people sitting up in bed.

The company hopes its new design - which will be in production by year end and in the market by next January - will catapult it into the lucrative United States bed market.

Design Mobel knew that to compete in international markets it had to develop a system that would move from using unsustainable resources to substituting them with sustainable and recyclable resources.

The company also wanted to develop intellectual property that would give a competitive edge in international markets.

"We felt no one had really looked at the whole concept of sleep systems from the bottom up, nor worked out a way to make better use of modern recyclable resources and concepts in full production," Design Mobel senior designer Tim Allan said.

"We wanted to test out some ideas and we set about searching where the best expertise might be."

That search took the company to ergonomics specialists and sleep experts, as well as involving the University of Auckland. Rotorua-based Forest Research also became a research partner, developing new materials for use in the bed.

The project was assisted by Technology New Zealand, which provided funding for testing and further development.

Technology New Zealand also awarded a Technology for Industry Fellowship to Mark van Rij, an engineering graduate, to begin a research project. His research, six months on, is focusing on providing a simple means of adjustability - a way of refining the rake and pitch of a bed for ultimate comfort whether sitting or lying down.

"The whole thing is quite a complex project. It utilises materials which we haven't used before, for instance like extruded aluminium, some composite materials and injected moulded plastics," Mr Allan said.

"There's a new mattress design and also manufacturing method and there is also a new support surface. Those are basically designed to allow people to tailor their sleep surface to what they desire."

Support systems to suit different body types - shorter, taller, heavier, or lighter, for example - can be put together in one frame.

"Currently in our system we have a flexible slat surface which you can actually put different weights on, but the mattresses you can't.

"So this really takes that a step further and you can tailor the mattress and the support surface to what you require individually," Mr Allan said.

Design Mobel sells its products throughout New Zealand and Australia.