The Aakkoset bookshelf from Kayiwa might not be the most efficient way to store your things, but the alphabet shelf sure would get a typographer excited. Look at how useful a well constructed ‘W” can be! More »
In between beers, my student days were spent shuttling between at least 10 different homes, and my poor battered library would definitely have benefited from PLoP! This concept from designer Joyce Hong is simply a rigid cardboard bookshelf that collapses up when you need to move it around. It weighs just 4 pounds, and can be extended from two segments up to as big as you like and still remain collapsible. And when you’re done with it, you can just PLoP! it in the recycling for eco-friendliness. Simple. [Yanko Designs]
Brazilian design firm Triptyque has designed an apartment-wide storage solution/book shelf that looks kind of like what everyone thought the future would be in 1965. Custom-made for a private apartment in Sao Paolo, the shelf winds its way through the entire area, pulling double duty as an entertainment rack and a cubbyhole storage system. Add this on the list of things I’ll be adding to my bachelorette shag pad once I become a multimillionaire. Check out the layout.
If you thought the London’s apartment stair bookcase was the coolest thing since Martha Stewart introduced you to vacuum-packing underpants with you still inside, check this beautiful bathtub bookcase (or viceversa) by Italian company Antonio Lupi. Part of the Biblio collection, it’s made in wood and corian, the adamantium-hard material made by Dupont. And as their giant UFO and boat after the jump show, it’s not their only cool bathtub.
We’ve shown you staircase bookshelves, elasticated ones, bookchair ones and now there’s this balancing design. There must be something about the form-meets-function nature of a bookshelf that means designers just can’t resist them. In this case, “form” gets an added twist with the addition of a pivot and some sliding weights. So you can have a cookily tilted shelf, or slide the weights around to compensate for an unbalanced library: “Maintain the Balance of Your Knowledge” as designer Denis Oh puts it. Weird concept, but interesting. [Yanko design] galleryPost('Balanceshelf', 3, '');
Useful if you have a really really small apartment, or you just appreciate bookshelf-cum-furniture design, the plywood Bookseat stores your TV Guide copy of War and Peace handily within reach. Alternatively, if you think books are old hat, you could store your DVDs and computer mags in it. Some might think Bookseat is design convergence gone mad, but we think it’s simple, neat and that you’ll be seeing it in waiting rooms of trendy offices everywhere. Available sometime in Spring, price unknown. [Fishbol furniture via Freshome]
Designed by Arianna Vivenzio, the Elastico concept is basically an elastic band stretched around a stout pair of metal posts mounted on your wall. Tension in the band keeps your various books standing in place, and you could even insert box-shaped structures for trinkets and the like. Presumably, to avoid sagging it couldn’t carry too many books, and lord knows what dramas would happen if your cat leapt onto the shelf and upset everything. Anyhow, we think it’s admirable for its simplicity and flexibility (get it?) [Arianna Vivenzio via Oh Gizmo]
