Shelf is
Made by Viable London. Same guy also did a lamp sinking into a table - called Titanic Lamp I think. The lamp is kind of clever.
As to the shelving unit - another attempt at being clever without actually thinking it through. Neat as a visual divide, but totally useless as a bookshelf on any of the angled shelves. And really, does anyone think that chair is actually comfortable.
Useless
I dislike this because it's useless.
I hate this because it's useless but PRETENDS to be extraordinarily useful-- "Look! Not merely a (badly designed) bookshelf... also a (badly designed) chair... and a (badly designed) table! What it lacks in utility, it makes up for in volume!
Could the designer possibly be more self-indulgent and carried away with their own 'cleverness'? Featured in Dwell-- mission accomplished!
I have to disagree with it be...
I have to disagree with it being useless. How many of you use a bookend to stop your books, dvds, or whatever from falling over? Many I'm sure. The angle allows for books to be placed upright without the need of a bookend. Minimal..... perhaps, but each shelf looks to be intended for different uses. Not everything you want to display will fit your your 10" high shelf. Some are perfectly horizontal for your decorative items. Think outside the box people, I mean this is a design forum.
As for the chair and ottoman, I think its clever the way it tucks inside and almost disapears. May not be the most comfortable chair, but I dont think thats what the designer was really after in creating such a unit of all hard surfaces.
Final thought: I think its a great scuptural bookshelf with clever seating.
Angling a shelf is an extravagant way
to avoid the prospect of using a simple bookend, don't you think?
A simple bookend is space efficient and can be placed wherever the user wants. An angled shelf wastes space, and the user is forced to stack things flush left (or right), depending on the designer's whimsical choice of angle.
You seem to imply that this design is 'all about options' and some of us just can't wrap our uptight minds around this groovy concept.
I would submit that a simple horizontal/ vertical shelving design with modular shelves demonstrates greater versatility and farsighted grooviness than this inflexible thing.
As for the chair and ottoman(?)-- your defense only restates my objection to them. 'Clever' is for editorial spreads and museums, not for actual use.
(Nevermind the fact that the chair promises to be uncomfortable-- imagine the difficulty one would have in casually pulling out the chair, to use. I wonder how long the new owner would continue to think this design 'clever'...)
jbnicovich
I find it odd that the designer would design angled shelves to avoid the use of book-ends, whilst simultaneously disregarding how the books themselves are designed.
Without getting overly technical I will say that bookbinding is designed to preserve the contents of the books. Any book worth its weight deserves to be stored standing vertically on a horizontal shelf. Storing the book on its side presents one set of problems, and storing the book at an angle presents a much more serious set of problems.
At an angle gravity is pulling the weight of the text block against the sewing/glued supports in a manner for which they were not designed. Much like the legs of a chair, the covers of a book transfer the weight of the pages down to the ground/shelf. When you tip a chair backwards the weight is transferred from a simple vertical load, to a load levering against the nearest joint. So too, goes the book.
This is why libraries have horizontal shelves.
This designer didn't make thi...
This designer didn't make this so you don't have to use a bookend. He/she designed it because they don't have a clue about the nature of designing purely. Good design solves problems, and this just creates them.
A better idea for the bookend theory, and perhaps a less witty one, is a horizontal shelf with simple curved rod bookends that can screw in to little holes drilled the entire length - so that it can be adjustable and placed anywhere the user desires. Plus it would prevent the irritating tendency for them to slip out of place under the weight.
This shelf is like designing a bike with no seat. What are the advantages of a chair being hidden inside? Who could actually finish one chapter on this seat of ass torture? This designer wants to be a designer just because it sounds cool. If they cared about design, they wouldn't have created something so ultimately useless to rational humans.
having done a lot of 3d model...
having done a lot of 3d modelling lately I've begun to wonder if a lot of the new work we see in magazines such as this even exist yet, this image looks suspiciously like a 3d render to me, sure its manufacturable...but not without its problems, especially in the chair, any butt join in ply or mdf will inevitably develop a rather ugly little crack where the finish is applied over the join.
I think the apologists for this sort of design tend to be either young or new to the field...not old enough to appreciate common sense yet.
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