Extremis BeHive Patio Furniture
30 March 2010
“It’s the Laughter”
Have you ever had one of those evenings with close friends or family that just takes on a life of its own? Afterwards, people joke that it was such a fun evening because you served better than usual wine, but, really, it’s because you’re family. Maybe yours is one of those wonderful extended families with a lot of friends, or maybe it’s just a group of old-time, very close friends, but if it’s the right group and the right kind of evening, you just find yourself talking all night, laughing and carrying on. Probably the best of those is the evenings with siblings and friends who haven’t heard all the family stories the siblings have to tell, because those are the ones that cause you to wake up the next morning with ribs that are actually sore from all the laughing.
Sometimes when it’s family it gets so good and so intense that you really hate to get up for anything, even bathroom trips, so you hold it and hold it until the last damned second, pretty much, afraid that when you get back the mood will have changed. But if it’s a nice enough evening, and a good enough group
, and a sheltering enough and wonderful enough of a cocoon, well, you can pretty much be guaranteed that the magic won’t leave the evening until the guests do. And with that I can talk about the subject of today’s blog, because these people have really come up with something.
Extremis is a fairly young Belgian company, but it is already known around the world, probably because of concepts like this one. But one of the things I really do want to emphasize-because I write about so many European concepts-is that even though Extremis is a European-based company, it is NOT an available-only-in-Europe product. They are available world-wide, by which I mean not only Europe, where they have the most outlets, but every continent except Antarctica. And for my American readers, I should point out that they are available coast to coast. And once the word gets out about the products these people are coming up with, I have to believe that their availability is going to do nothing but accelerate.
When I first saw how they spelled BeHive, I thought it might be the result of a similar word in their language, but it is actually a conscious change to the spelling of beehive.
I have already stated the emotions evoked in me by this concept, and that, interestingly enough, is a lot of the reason for spelling it as they did. As they put it on their website, “This feeling is exactly what BeHive has to offer. Don’t stand alone, become the hive, be hive.”
Extremis BeHive was deliberately designed with the idea of making togetherness not just a dream, but a reality. It is over twelve feet in diameter and is said to be large enough to seat twenty people, even if all of them are lying down. The floor of the unit is a tightly stretched fabric that is suspended some 24″ above the ground. You can lie, sit, or lean against the comfortable side cushions. The trampoline-type material for the floor automatically adapts to the shape of one’s body, which makes it all the more comfortable for lounging. In the center of the hive, the fabric is attached to the table base, which offers equal comfort to all and makes it stable enough for people to walk upon it to any one of the four exits. Users can also make use of the center t
able, as the hole in the middle of the seating fabric permits an upright seating position.
The BeHive has a number of optional accessories, including a rain roof and several varieties of curtains, the better to create any kind of ambience. It also comes with a center roof light for those wonderful all-night sessions I mentioned at the start of this blog.
I have no idea what they charge for such a concept, and I’m not sure it even matters because of what it will surely do for the most important thing of all, family. A family that comes together, especially adult siblings, almost always laughs together, and there’s nothing more important than that. I’m sorry to end this on somewhat of a maudlin note, but because of my age I’ve been to more funerals than I care to think about. The one thing they all have in common is a lot of tears and a lot of laughter, and in the end that’s what we remember best about those we love, the laughter.
Joseph
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