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.

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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.”

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