If you’re looking to take your hammock game to the next level this summer—and have a few thousand dollars to spend on your high-tech lounging—the Kodama Zome might be for you.
Combining complex geometry and physics, the treehouse-like hanging outdoor bed dangles from a pendulum anchor that allows for movement in all directions.
The Zome’s creator, structural engineer Richie Duncan, said he envisioned it as a kind of fusion of classic lounging modes. “It’s the next evolution of daybed meets the hammock,” he said. He admitted, however, that this invention was “one of the toughest elevator pitches ever.”
The Kodama Zome’s name is the combination of the word zome—the linguistic merger of the acclaimed designer Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic dome and the zonohedron shape —and kodama, the word for the peaceful spirits of Japanese folklore that live among the trees of the forest. The original zome design that inspired Duncan was pioneered as a building concept by Steve Baer in the 1960s in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
While dome-like seating areas are not a new concept, Duncan said, the Kodama Zome’s innovation is the pendulum anchor, which allows it swing from above.
The Kodama Zome comes in custom shapes and sizes—Duncan described a Zome he made with built-in speakers and LCD screens—and the price starts at $4,800.
For his part, Duncan said that he loves to set up the Zome among the trees surrounding his home in southern Oregon, but it could also be hung from a frame on a beach, or even in shallow water.
