Photo: Heinz-Josef Lücking

Go directly to her excellent photo-graphic alcove show here:

- ALCOVE - MY FAVOURITE SLEEPING PLACE 

Really refreshing to see this in these continental-bed-times, awful and anxiety-generating as they are.

Hope you know about the two stars alexandrine pattern BED ALCOVE, which is pattern 188 in A Pattern Language. Here Christopher Alexander states that bedrooms make no sense. His conclusion is as follows:

Don't put single beds in empty rooms called bedrooms, but instead put individual bed alcoves off rooms with other non-sleeping functions, so the bed itself becomes a tiny private haven. - Christopher Alexander

For all of you who have A Pattern Language in your book shelves (I guess some of you have, as this book is a major classic), I advice to look up pattern 188 to read it in full.

Thanks also to Mariette VandenMunckhof-Vedder in the comments thread about why people slept half-sitting in old times. I've heard other explanations before, but hers sounds most credible.