Jamais Content is a unique architectural room divider solution created by Atelier Marc Ferrand and produced by Italian furniture company Bottega Ghianda. The modular system is, first and foremost, a functional bookcase with large open square-shaped shelves. But it’s also the foundation for building your own rooms-within-rooms — even rounded ones. That’s the coolest part of this kit of parts. You can assemble them to create organically shaped spaces in your desired proportions and forms.

The modular bookcase is made of individual pieces of citronnier, a type of wood sourced from Ceylon Island, along with a satin-finished brass “cross” element that acts as a decorative fastener. Small brass bolts connect the wooden elements to the crosses and to each other for stability. The wood shelves come in two different sizes, and a leather door is available as an optional add-on to create “a fascinating interplay of solids and voids.” The process is meant to be experimental. If you build something and don’t like it, or your needs change, just start over. The name, Jamais Content, translates to “never satisfied” in English.

The possibilities of this system seem virtually endless. Sure, you could create linear installations, much like you would with any other modular bookcase or room divider system, but the ability to produce rounded rooms is just too fun to resist. Imagine creating a little rounded office, reading room, meditation space, or study area for kids within your living room. As Ferrand explains, Jamais Content is architecture, enveloping and protecting like any other shelter.

Rendered in sophisticated materials with a focus on fine craftsmanship, Jamais Content is definitely a step up (okay, quite a few steps up) from IKEA. Based near Lake Como in Italy, Bottega Ghianda is a leader in Italian cabinetmaking known for its expertise with wood. That 200-year-old reputation shines through in this piece.

About Atelier Marc Ferrand

As the designer’s website explains: “The work of Marc Ferrand, nourished by minimalist forms, is characterized by a reflection on the temporal nature of matter and its relationship to architecture, creating a design that evolves with time and each imagination. A designer who graduated from the École Bleue (Paris, 2006), Marc Ferrand became the same year a collaborator with the Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, for whom he was responsible for the design of nomadic and temporary architectures.”

“In this capacity, he was notably in charge of the Hermès Pavilion in Milan, the Shiseido Pavilion for the Venice Biennale of Arts, and the Paper Tower for the London Design Festival. Atelier Marc Ferrand develops industrial design projects with international publishers, designs reconstruction projects, and pursues research on forms and their relationship to the body and architecture.”

The post Modular Bookcase System Lets You Build Endless 3D Storage Structures first appeared on Dornob.

German designer Deniz Aktay took a cylindrical wooden side table and carved a deep J-shaped groove into one side to create “Bookgroove” — one large enough to hold roughly two dozen mid-sized books. The visual effect is playful, with the color of the book spines contrasting with the neutral tone of the light wood grain. And it’s still functional as a side table, with plenty of room to set down your glasses, the remote, or a cup of coffee (though not everyone is comfortable with the idea of placing liquids over their favorite reads).

The Bookgroove is not his first foray into the realm of bookshelf furniture. Aktay’s “Booknest” is a vertical shelf with an almond shaped opening, wherein users can stuff a number of books like a squirrel might shove its food into a tree hole. Similarly, his “Plot Twist” resembles a warped version of an old 90s CD storage tower.

Before discovering his passion for furniture design, Aktay studied architecture and urban planning at the University of Stuttgart. After working as an architect for some time, he started making his own furniture in his free time, even entering several furniture design contests. “The more I focused on designing furniture and objects, the more my enthusiasm grew,” he says on his Behance profile.

That enthusiasm eventually became a full-time job for him, and he now has almost 100 different projects posted on Behance. He explains: “Over time I figured out that good design means…finding the right harmony between proportion, material, and functionality. This goes with my demand for simplicity, originality, proper element joining, detailing, and appropriate use of the materials involved. Considering all these aspects, designing a new piece is an interesting challenge every time.”

While the Bookgroove is a novel concept, one concern yet to be answered by the designer is whether the books at the base and curve of the inset would become misshapen over time, or if the books at the bottom could even be removed individually. But maybe that’s missing the point, and form is meant to trump function in this striking design. It’s definitely a head-turning piece, as evidenced by the over 120,000 likes on Aktay’s Instagram handle.

Aktay’s next task is to get enough interest to be able to sign on with manufacturers of his unique pieces. “The biggest challenge is to share your ideas with the public. I met so many nice people, got lovely comments, so much good advice, much encouragement,” Aktay said in an interview with HomeCrux. “I could attract attention from various interesting manufacturers – so my first professional jobs in designing and furniture realization as well as in visualizing them are just getting started.”

Those intrigued by his innovative designs can check out his work on his website and Instagram account.

The post This Modern Side Table Holds Your Books in an Awesomely Unique Way first appeared on Dornob.

Seb Przd is a skilled photographer known for his fantastic “little planet” photography. He has also created this highly compelling set of seemingly impossible bookcases to showcase his skills as a photographer but even more so as a highly creative photo editor – someone who can manipulate reality in novel but highly mathematical ways.

Seb can be seen here creating infinite loops, regressions and spirals and even arguing with himself in one instance. He works, in general, with photographs that are impossible with a conventional camera – and specifically with spherical panaromas and creative ways to map these onto flat surfaces including stereographic projections and conformal mappings.

So what does this have to do with actual bookcase design? Very little, directly speaking, but it speaks indirectly to new ways we can look at old conventions. These photographs take a very simple 3-by-3 design grid – one of the most conventional design layouts in the world – and reinterprets it in radical new ways. Also, take a second look: while these may look impossible at first they are, in reality, only highly improbable. All could be built in one form or another, though the level of detail might be highly difficult to achieve.

“About my work…”

“The first step is spherical panoramas, or as they are commonly known, Virtual Reality. Visit my equirectangular set, or view my last ten pictures in an interactive and immersive viewer (courtesy of fieldofview; needs Shockwave). I also have a limited number of interactive panoramas in ViewAt.org (in Flash).”

“As the visual sphere cannot be projected onto a flat surface without being distorted or torn, I have devised several ways of showing these spherical panoramas on a flat screen. One of the most appealing ways is the stereographic projection, the most common presentation of which looks like a little planet. The stereographic projection is just one example of conformal mappings, an infinite family of mathematically defined projections of the sphere to the plane that look good.”

The post Seemingly Impossible Spiral Bookcase Designs first appeared on Dornob.

New bookcases are almost always built with straight sides and simple shelves for a reason beyond simplicity of construction. Like standard shelving, these fit neatly into rectilinear interior spaces — but on the inside, they are shaped to surprise.

From design studio Munkii comes a fun spin on vintage bookcases that maintains a clean-line modern sensibility on the outside, yet conveys a different message entirely thanks to its cut-out facade.

Munkii describes their design as “flamboyantly baroque” as it clearly draws on ornate custom-cut curves of classic wood-worked dressers and cases. The velvety red-brown interior is also a reference to this materiality, while the white frame serves as a blank canvas backdrop for the core decor.

Right angles make it easy to put this piece in a corner or against a wall – functional for small and contemporary rooms – while also making a bold design statement. Why can’t you have both?

It might be tempting to classify this kind of vintage-style revivalism as ‘postmodern’ but … somehow the results seem to be classier (though kitsch may be in the eye of the beholder.

If you are looking for simple white shelves to blend into the background, this may not be for you … if you want an ornately-curved centerpiece that stands out, however, Vintage provides an alternative to purely abstract modern art furniture.

“Munkii is a modern furniture studio co-founded in 2006 with designer Jaren Goh at the helm of our creative team. It gives us the opportunity to inject our own flavor and perspective in the contemporary living space. Our design summarizes the brand and we are fanatical in creating furniture pieces that refuse to be ignored and crave your attention yet agreeing with basic human impressions and expectations. They are great additions that flaunt both beauty and individuality. Designs that are just keen to rouse your space.”

The post Modern Vintage: Carved Baroque Bookcase first appeared on Dornob.

Sometimes the most impressive designs are almost accidental, evolving as if they’re living organisms.

There are some amazing bookcases out there in the world, but forget all of the ones you’ve seen for just a moment. Instead, consider the beauty of bookshelves populated with your favorite volumes … there is a case to be made, if you will, for simply letting these stand on their own and evolve visually as you fill them up.

(Above, Left to Right & Top to Bottom: John Barman, Eric Staudenmaier, Bill Kingston & Lili Abir Regen).

Design to Inspire recently gathered a series of photographs depicting relatively conventional (mostly built-in) bookcase designs of ordinary houses that, individually, might not look all that impressive … but taken together they are a bit like touring a library built over centuries in different styles. Here are some of the best pictures from the bunch, organized by style, material, tone and color.

(ILs and Jan Baldwin)

Classic Dark: These images could have been shot almost anytime in the past century (save for a few more recent pieces of furniture). Building floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall bookcases is not new… arguably, it was even more common before the advent of the internet. Do you find these ones cozy or overwhelming?

(M2 Interior Design and Simon Watson)

Modern Bright: There is nothing quite so successful but simple for adding color to a bland white interior as a well-placed, large-scale bookcase – the books do your work for you (especially if you do not trust your taste in modern wall art). Plus, there’s a never-ending supply of things to look at.

(Coburn Architecture,?Hus & Hem & Landstr?m Arkitekter)

Natural Wood: where white serves as blank and wood grain established mid-tones and visual orientation, books can add another finer-grained dimension to an otherwise cheap and elemental design like the ones shelved on these basic wooden built-ins. (Thomas Mayer and Jordi Canosa)

The post 14 Floor to Ceiling Bookcase Designs first appeared on Dornob.

For those of us who never want to stop reading, this might be the best bookcase ever designed – a loop that folds endlessly back upon itself. Unfortunately, despite the awesome visual effect of the piece it only stores (of course) a finite number of actual volumes.

Award-winning artist Job Koelewijn is known for works that engage his audiences and invite them to touch and otherwise more directly experience his creations. He has worked with everything from photography, film and architecture to performing art.

Given his love of the written word and for senses such as touch and smell it is no surprise that Job chooses to work with books over and over and over again. Sometimes this takes the form of sculpture and other times the book covers become mosaics on walls or surfaces layered upon other sculptural forms.

“Although conceptual in nature, Job Koelewijn’s work is also highly tactile,” reads his artist statement. “Koelewijn attracted attention early on, when he was still a student at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy. For his final project, he had his mother and aunts dress in traditional Spakenburg folk costume and ritually clean the Academy’s glass exhibition pavilion. Since then his work has ranged from photography and film to architectural structures, and from small objects to large installations. He covered the floor of a Medieval hall in Middelburg with spaghetti, which was pulverised under the feet of visitors; he applied perfumed baby powder to the walls of a space at the Biennale in Venice; and he turned urban and rural landscapes into a ‘film screen’ by placing the auditorium of a cinema before them.”

“Koelewijn makes abundant use of text in his work. He favours poetry, for example by Marsman or Beckett, and materials that appeal to the sense of touch, smell and hearing. His work is one of tremendous fragility and purity, qualities that, like cleanliness, he turns into themes; his ‘stories’ are always highly visual and imaginative and have an immediate appeal. Koelewijn’s work is not really commercial; much of it is produced for exhibitions and is temporary in nature.”

The post Infinite-Loop Bookcase Design first appeared on Dornob.

Grow Your Own Garden

Using a bunch of old wood pallets, you can create a flower bed that’s large enough to sit on your porch or small enough to slot into your garden between your existing succulents, flowers, and vegetables — anything your heart desires, really. This is ideal for those people who live in apartments with balconies, as it allows them to create planters that still leave space for other outdoor activities. Grow your own basil to spruce up your evening meals, or cultivate a mini strawberry garden to grow your own dessert. It’ll help you save money on groceries and give you a healthy hobby to enjoy during the warmer months!

Headboard

Been endlessly scrolling through Pinterest looking at bedroom inspo all day? We know we certainly have, and we love that “old world” rustic aesthetic that’s currently dominating the millennial interior industry. Use the pallets as they are or give them a lick of paint to match your décor, place them behind your bed, and voila! An authentic, upcycled headboard that’ll help bring that earthy, bohemian vibe you’ve been going for to life. Just make sure to thoroughly wash them before bringing the outdoors in. After all, you don’t want any uninvited guests crawling around your mattress late at night.

Wood Pallet Radiator Cover

This one’s an especially lovely idea for those who want to keep their humble abodes cozy but don’t want unsightly heaters or radiators spoiling the aesthetic. Large wood pallets can be used to cover these heating appliances simply by being turned on their sides. When oriented as such, they also double as shelving units, allowing you to kill two birds with one stone.

Bookshelf

If you’ve already managed to bag yourself a couple wood pallets, why not get crafty with a saw and hammer and use them to design your own bookcase? Cut, carve, and slot together beams to create a statement piece for your library, living room, or office. Not only will it spark conversation among your guests, but it’ll also make for a proud and beautiful display of your hard work and ingenuity.

Sofas, Beds, and Sofa Beds

Most home DIYers who take on wood pallet projects tend to use them as foundations for homemade beds and other pieces of cushioned furniture. Because they’re so tough, using them to hold up mattresses and soft furnishings is actually a great way to save money on décor. Plus, you can always use the gaps in the slats for extra storage.

Compost Bin

If you couldn’t already tell, these multifunctional pieces of hardware can also be used for outdoor projects. It’ll take a while for them to weather, and since they’re formed from a natural material, they tend to look a lot more at home in the garden than large brightly-colored plastic containers. Simply nail five pallets together (or use zip ties) to form a compost bin that will efficiently ventilate the organic matter it holds.

Workbench

If you’re an artist, inventor, mechanic, painter, model maker, gardener, or anyone else who needs a place where they can comfortably get messy, you should definitely consider using wood pallets to make yourself the perfect workbench. Use three fair-sized pallets to form the table and add shelves wherever necessary — it’s entirely yours to customize.

All images sourced from Pinterest.com

The post 7 Fun Wood Pallet Projects to Up Your Décor first appeared on Dornob.

The post DIY: Upside Down Bookshelf first appeared on Dornob.

Academic institutions and royal palaces might have entire “wonder rooms” filled wall-to-wall with such cabinets, but in private homes, the Wunderkammer typically stood alone. Inside, you could expect to find things like scientific specimens (shells, horns, and animal bones), geological finds, historical relics, religious items, and small works of art from other cultures.

While the mysterious collections held within these cabinets attracted the gaze of all who entered the room, the cabinets themselves typically received less attention. Historically, they’ve ranged from simple open wooden shelving with niches of various shapes and sizes to grand glass cases framed by ornate hand-carved millwork. Cabinets of curiosities are far less popular today than they were centuries ago, but you don’t have to be a fan of taxidermy or creepy specimens in jars to find value in a well curated, beautifully framed collection.

So how does one go about adapting the Wunderkammer with a fitting aesthetic for the modern era? Designer Fabrice Berrux set out to answer that question in a recent collaboration with Bonaldo, one of Italy’s premier manufacturers of elegant furniture and decorative accessories. Fifteen years ago, the designer found himself captivated by a particular cabinet belonging to his grandfather. Those memories would go on to lay the groundwork for his new bookcase, simply titled “Cabinet de Curiosité.”

“The bookcase is a tribute to my Parisian grandfather,” says Berrux. “There was one room in his apartment which fascinated me more than any other. It was the room he occupied every evening until late at night: his office, or better, his room of wonders, his ‘cabinet de curiosité.’ A place for thinking, for creating, for recalling memories, packed with books, paintings, masks, sculptures, and a thousand other ‘essential’ objects.”

Six individual modules offer arched niches framed in chic and simple lacquered white wood, their interiors painted a subtle anthracite grey to offset the objects placed inside. These modules can be assembled in a number of different configurations and subdivided with shelving to display books, pottery, sculpture, and anything else you collect. Placed together, they create an architectural facade, with each niche acting like a window into a world of your own creation.

Envisioned specifically for the modern home, the cabinet is striking in its own right without overpowering its curated contents. This custom cabinet of curiosities is available exclusively through Bonaldo, with purchasing information available upon request.

Born in Boulogne-Billancourt, France in 1964, Berrux graduated from the National Arts School in Dijon in 1986 and founded his firm 18 AOUT in 1987. Since 2005, he’s been a design teacher at Paris’ Ecole Blue, simultaneously working on his own collections of lighting products, carpets, and other luxury objects for the home.

The post Display Treasured Finds in a Modern Modular Cabinet of Curiosities first appeared on Dornob.

Science Fiction

What Doctor Who fan wouldn’t jump at the chance to show off their very own TARDIS? Even if it’s just a storage space for a collection of science fiction books, it’s fun to imagine it doubling as a time travel machine. Modeled on police boxes commonly seen around England, the design makes for a fun and clutter-free book cabinet that can be closed or opened to put your books on display or intrigue your guests. If you’re handy, you can make your own with a tutorial from Gears4Brains on Instructables.

This AT-AT bookcase by Pottery Barn is meant for kids, but there are probably more than a few adult Star Wars fans who would love to integrate it into their living room or office decor. It’s made of solid poplar and engineered wood, hand-painted in charcoal finish, and features two shelves as well as some storage space in the head.

Comic Books & Graphic Novels

Clever modular bookshelf systems envisioned by industrial designer Burak Dogan align just the right way on the wall to represent the logos of major superhero characters and franchises, including Superman, Wonder Woman, The Avengers, Captain America, and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Dogan is currently seeking a sponsor or manufacturer to produce and sell these designs.

Etsy is a great place to find geeky custom bookshelves cut into specific shapes, including the version of the Batman logo popularized by Christopher Nolan’s film series. This one comes from Hungary-based seller Csiszer Wood.

Fantasy & Mythology

A dragon-themed bookshelf is a fitting way to display stories of fantasy and myth. It’s easy to imagine lining the shelves of this beautiful hand-carved custom Viking ship bookcase with tales of Old Norse gods, from Beowulf and the Edda to Neil Gaiman’s Norse Mythology.

Not quite bold enough for you? Perhaps a nearly life-sized dragon perched atop a bookcase seems better suited to honoring your precious tomes by J.R.R. Tolkein and George R. R. Martin. This one, built by prop maker Eric Hart, is definitely a bit kinder and gentler-looking than the “children” of Daenerys Targaryen.

Classic Literature & Historical Fiction

Few architectural or design traditions are quite as romantic as Gothic style, especially when it comes to ornate bookcases adorned in dramatic spires, quatrefoils and sharply pointed arches. The library at Strawberry Hill, a historic Gothic Revival villa in Twickenham, London, offers a perfect example. These floor-to-ceiling built-in bookcases cover the walls of the entire room and even feature family portraits carved into the plaster arches. From Shakespeare to contemporary fictional accounts of the life of Anne Boleyn, anything historical would fit right into this stunning interior treatment.

Mystery & Horror

These bookshelves by Victor Parish almost seem to have taken on lives of their own, arching down from the wall as if they’re just trying out a little yoga. They’re rather Tim Burton-esque, and definitely well-suited to strange and unusual tales.
Want to go in a more classic horror direction for your Anne Rice, Stephen King, Shirley Jackson, H.P. Lovecraft, and Edgar Allan Poe? Coffin-shaped bookcases aren’t too hard to make or find, with lots of them available on Etsy, like this three-foot-tall version by The Haunted Coffin. Real coffins that have been converted into bookcases sometimes pop up on eBay, too.

The post Storytime Storage: 10 Custom Bookcases to Showcase Your Favorite Genre first appeared on Dornob.

The Frames 2.0 bookshelf from designer Gerard de Hoop takes the traditional (and, let’s face it, kind of boring) bookshelf design and turns it into a functional minimalist sculpture. Frames 2.0 is composed of two sets of six wooden frames. When disassembled, the frames nest together into flat-pack rectangles. But when you put it together, it becomes a beautifully useful storage piece or room divider.

The negative space in the bookshelf makes it seem airy and almost too delicate to hold objects. But its interlaced structure makes it sturdy enough to support books, mementos, decorative items, and whatever else you can fit onto its thin shelves.

Accessory metal containers can fit into the negative spaces and act as planters or just serve as storage spaces for small objects. The uneven beams and scaffold-like shape give it the look of a Mondrian painting that has somehow leapt into the third dimension.

“FRAMES 2.0, a composition of 12 wooden frames to be used as a minimalist freestanding cabinet or as a room divider. The open frames give an exciting arrangement, and from a certain angle the frames even seem to float. The ‘shelves’ have different widths with an open center, and can accommodate a number of books and accessories. Also available with glass shelves. Packed, all frames fit together. The total package contains 2 sets of 6 frames (flat pack).”

About the designer

“Gerard Hoop (Stadskanaal, 1968) is a versatile and passionate designer. He studied Architectural Design and Interior Architecture at the Minerva Art Academy in Groningen. His work consists of a constant search for innovation and ingenuity in the field of functional products. His ambition is to create unique designs that contain the elements of simplicity, surprise and versatility.”

“Simplicity is mainly achieved through the use of basic geometric shapes. He always pushes the boundaries of what is possible, and is always looking for a certain tension. This element of surprise, that special effect is what he strives for. A number of his furniture designs are included in the collections of international design brands.”

The post Nesting Frames Pop Up into an Awesome Bookshelf first appeared on Dornob.

The updated version of the rotating bookshelf is called Albero, which is Italian for “tree.” The shelf, held in place by tension rods, does in fact resemble a tree with branches extending from its central trunk. The rotating cubes are a modernized update of the classic design, creating a cleaner and airier aesthetic.

Each cube is customizable and can be moved around the “trunk” to fit your specific design needs. The stylish, modern bookshelf has an extremely tiny footprint, making it perfect for smaller homes where a traditional bookcase would be impractical. Just like its classic inspiration, the updated Albero bookcase is fit for displaying your most prized decorative objects alongside your book collection.

More from the designers

“Designed in the late 50’s by Gianfranco Frattini as a ‘floor-to-ceiling’ central bookcase, Albero was created for use in interior settings rather than for mass production. The Albero bookcase is formally associated with the Neo-Liberty period and, in terms of product type, with the floor-to-ceiling bookcase systems that were popular throughout the 1950’s and 60’s.”

“The structure is distinctive both for its intricate cabinet work and its sculpted appearance, which ensures that it is the centrepiece of the room. The supporting structure of the Albero bookcase is in solid Canaletto walnut. It is made up of two toothed supports, with a special rack joint, and four vertical pillars with regular holes that make it possible to assemble either 8 or 12 shelves. The latter are in MDF with wood veneer. The caps, at the ceiling and on the floor, are attached to the ends of the toothed supports.”

“The top cap is inserted in a ‘cup’ anchored to the ceiling. The bottom cap grips the floor with a non-slip rubber. The bookcase is held securely in position by four metal locknuts in the caps. The fixing elements (caps and cup) have an antiqued burnished steel finish. The signature of the designer and the Poltrona Frau logo are laser engraved on the lower toothed support. The Albero bookcase can rotate 360°. On request, the shelf surfaces can be embellished and protected with a 4 mm-thick Cuoio Saddle leather insert with tone-on-tone dyed edge. The insert has hand markings around the edge and is branded with the Poltrona Frau logo.”

The post Retro Rotating Bookcase Looks Like an Abstracted Tree first appeared on Dornob.

Rectilinear shelves make it easy to organize and display objects in a variety of shapes, but thinking outside the box (literally) can lead to visuals that are refreshingly unexpected. The ROOM collection by Erik Olovsson and Kyuhyung Cho consists of pine modules with all sorts of cut-out shapes that can be stacked however you like, calling to mind a set of children’s wooden blocks.

The 25 stackable modules feature voids in the shapes of circles, ovals, triangles, arches, octagons and more. Fitting decorative objects into them is almost like a puzzle that challenges both aesthetic and practical considerations. Which shape shows off each object to the greatest effect?

The shapes inside each module are inspired by architecture and the shapes of certain objects they could hold, like rounded holes for bottles of wine and keyholes for small floral arrangements, but the options are only limited by the user’s imagination.

The blocks can be stacked into a typical bookcase arrangement, or in sculptural compositions that make the resulting piece of furniture just as much of a decorative object as the items contained within. You can buy these pieces on 1stDibs.

“Room Collection is a shelving system, various geometric voids inspired by architecture and the objects they can hold. When all the elements of ROOM are combined it forms either a long shelf or a tall cabinet with a variety of different graphical compositions. ROOM allows each user to pick their favorite elements to build up your own composition as a shelf, a table or just as a sculpture.”

About the designer: “Studio Erik Olovsson is a Stockholm based design studio. It was founded 2013 and works within the fields of product, furniture and graphic design. Studio EO has a focus on improvisation and joining materials in new ways. The studio aims at having an intuitive and experimental starting point in the projects and works in a mix of self initiated projects and commissions. Studio EO have works represented at Galerie kreo and works with various of clients internationally.”

The post Feel Like a Kid Again With These Creative Stackable Cut-Out Shelves first appeared on Dornob.

Dedicated bibliophiles know that how you display your books is nearly as important as the type of books you read. Raw Edges, a Tel Aviv design studio comprised of Yael Mer and Shay Alkalay, designed this striking bookcase called Bloom.

The modern bookshelf was inspired by a weaving loom, featuring many vertical cords adorned with movable black stoppers. These stoppers allow owners to display their books as though they were floating on the vertical axis, akin to a fantastical floating garden.

Because the black stoppers can be moved to any position, users have the option of creating their very own hanging gardens in whatever configuration pleases their eyes. This creative bookshelf design, more than perhaps any other, allows the book lover to translate the art of literature into visible, tangible art.

The project was commissioned to show off Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists series. Hanging the books at different heights encourages viewers to consider each book individually instead of taking them in as a collection within a row. It’s an unusual way to display books, for sure, perhaps threatening to overshadow the books themselves with the bookshelf’s sculptural and artistic design.

“Colours, patternmaking and movement form a large part of the DNA at Raw-Edges,” reads the design duo’s website. “The ideas of energy and provocative illusion are aimed at bringing out the kid in all of us who engage with it, an ongoing battle against boredom perhaps! Some ideas include pouring expandable foam into folded paper cavities, cooking timber in boiling dyes, and making paper moulds for the production of industrial ceramic tiles.”

“Yael and Shay met in Jerusalem and moved to London to study at the RCA, where Ron Arad was head of the course at the time. Under the guidance of their tutors Daniel Charney and Rober Feo, they began to experiment with creating new typologies, by thinking how everyday surroundings might be enriched by the products we use and the objects we own. In a show curated by Martino Gamper, held just after graduating, Yael and Shay presented Stack and Volume, which helped to establish the foundation of the studio.”

The post Modern Bookshelf Design Inspired by Looms first appeared on Dornob.

Customization doesn’t come any more complete than this, but before you buy you had better be sure you know exactly what your favorite books are … and will remain.

Jane Dandy is an Etsy builder and seller based San Francisco who takes special orders for this unique kind of fill-in-the-blank furniture, a bookcase or potential side table when all your reading material is shelved.

Each rectangle is composed of a series of boards, sliced, slotted and stacked just right so that you can slip your series of hand-selected books into the spaces and complete the puzzle. The customer provides the dimensions and she builds and ships the results.

The post Niche Custom Bookcases: Built to Fit Your Exact Collection first appeared on Dornob.

Like a cut through a log with an axe, Damien Gernay imagines this lumberjack bookcase system as being blunt, direct and functionally effective.

As in an axe swing, gravity does most of the heavy lifting here, so to speak – the weight of the wood boards at each level help to stabilize the overall structure. At a glance it could look unstable, but our intuitions quickly apprehend how the loads move down through the supports.

Even better, there are essentially no connectors needed outside of each level’s framing element, meaning you could slot in finely-sliced and fully-finished boards, or rough-hewn lumber right off the chopping block (and also making manufacture a simple and repetitive process).

Materials: oak, thermo-coated steel. Dimensions : 160 x 35 x 130 cm. While custom-made for a client (ENO studio), the system provides great do-it-yourself inspiration for those inclined to experiment with the details. “I Imagined this shelving system as simple and rough as the stroke of the axe to cut the log in two,” the designer says.

About Damien Gernay

“Damien Gernay was born in 1975, in the suburbs of Paris. Between 1994 and 1998, he studied design at Ecole Supérieure des Arts (ESA) Saint-Luc Tournai in Belgium. After school, he worked on scenography projects for contemporary dance and theatre clients in Belgium. From 2003 to 2005, Gernay was an artist-in-residence at Le Fresnoy, National Studio for Contemporary Arts in Tourcoing, France, a center for interdisciplinary artists. In 2007, he established his own design studio in Brussels.”

“Gernay’s work is highly experimental, driven by his desire to challenge boundaries between art and design. To date, his practice spans furniture, lighting, and accessories. His pieces often reflect a reverence for nature and the enigmatic; his larger oeuvre focuses on materiality, texture, and ambiguity. Close to the considerations of a painter or a sculptor, the imponderable plays a decisive role in his practice. The error is accepted and assimilated, making each piece unique with its own history, complexities, and intimate paradoxes. He combine control with spontaneity, mixing the smooth with the rough.”

The post Lumberjack Bookcase: Rough and Simple Gravity-Held Shelves first appeared on Dornob.