Wednesday 30 November 2011

Balloon bookcase

Baloon fits perfectly into those places where children like to go to play and use their imagination, becoming a companion in adventure, a secret hiding-place for their special objects, a stage for puppets, an improvised television. This is what design can do: it allows you to take an object and give it multiple functions, it allows you to make the environment around you a place of stylistic experimentation, a reflection of your personality.
MATERIAL: structure in melamine faced chipboard, frame in lacquered MDF
COLOURS white | black
DIMENSIONS: W 62 x H 50 x D 26 cm
DESIGN: Giorgio Franchini
PRODUCTION: Sepa (Italy)
Bouf

Tuesday 29 November 2011

Assouline Custom-Built Library Fantasy Gift

The publishing house renowned for its beautiful volumes and cultural perspective is offering the ultimate enriching addition to your home: a bespoke library. From floor to ceiling and wall to wall, every nuance of this room will reflect the company's brilliant style—through custom carpeting, objets d'art, and beautifully framed prints—as well as your intellectual viewpoint. When the decor is complete, the shelves will be lined with a one-of-a-kind Assouline collection, consisting of 250 current and vintage volumes in the genre of your choice. You'll enjoy published works from the world's foremost artists, photographers, writers, architects, interior designers, and fashion and culinary masters. Get ready to ditch your high-tech tablet and kick back with a real book in the comfort of your very own literary haven. With this purchase, NM will donate $2,500 to First Book, an award-winning nonprofit organization that provides access to new books for children in need throughout the U.S. and Canada.
Neiman Marcus

Monday 28 November 2011

It's Nice That: bookshelf column

Ever wondered what’s on the bookshelf of some of your favourite creatives? What books they turn to in need of inspiration or reference? Whether they’re a messy Mary or a tidy Tina? Well look no further, because every week we invite someone from the creative industries to share with us not only a rundown of their favourite five books in the whole ruddy world, but also a real-life picture of the shelf on which these esteemed titles live.
It's Nice That

Thursday 24 November 2011

Unpacking My Library: Writers and Their Books

A lovely little book by Leah Price featuring a short essay by her about bookshelves, then a look at the personal libraries of several writers including Philip Pullman, Aliston Bechdel, Stephen Pinker and Junot Diaz including plenty of photographs of their bookshelves and discussions about their bookbuying and bookstoring habits. Certainly the best book about bookshelves published in 2011 and definitely should go in the Christmas stocking of anybody you know who likes reading and books.
Yale Press

Wednesday 23 November 2011

Friday 18 November 2011

Kamloops Human Library Project

The Human Library is a mobile library set up as a space for dialogue and interaction. Visitors to a Human Library are given the opportunity to speak informally with “people on loan”; this latter group being extremely varied in age, sex and cultural background.
Kamloops Human Library Project

Wednesday 16 November 2011

The shelf – furniture for public order

What actually is a shelf? In English, according to Webster's the word derives from the Old English term for the deck of a ship or a crag or ledge. The German word "regal", by contrast, has been in use since the 17th century and denotes a frame. But the latest edition of Kluge's Etymological Dictionary declares that the origin is not clear. The famed Brothers Grimm dictionary gives other meanings for "regal" as sovereignty, pluralized as "regalia". The register of an organ is likewise called a "regal".
Stylepark

Tuesday 15 November 2011

Meta


Meta is a bookcase. It is like a finish line that connects the author with the reader. Sometimes the exceptional nature of an object lies in the initial idea, its novelty, its function, or the new behaviours that are brought about by it. In this case, Mario Mazzer has created a solid and serious bookcase for Twentyfirst. The overlap, and partial penetration and transferring of three parallelepiped shapes, which are hollow in the front, has an asymmetrical, dynamic shape with a strong personality. It is, therefore, a design that mixes geometry and curves with high technology. The product is obtained by a rotating moulding and available in different colours. H1440 x L700 x Deep 360 mm.
Twentyfirst




Monday 14 November 2011

Boat bookcase


This version stands 36" high, 20" wide, and 9" deep. It can either sit on the floor as a nightstand or can be hung on the wall. There are two hooks on the back spaced 16" apart so it can be hung on two adjacent wall studs for safety. This particular one has the hull painted green with white trim and stained pecan on the inside.
SCBoatworks

Friday 11 November 2011

The Subconscious Shelf

As a teenage baby sitter, I went straight for the books. No sooner did the door close behind the spruced-up parents than I was on the prowl: the bedside table for erotica, the kitchen counter for cookbooks, the bathroom for magazines, and finally the official living-room shelves. Only then did I scan the refrigerator.
Leah Price in The New York Time

Thursday 10 November 2011

Kant


Kant provides an organized desk area. Due to its folded rear section, the desk offers a place to stow and archive books, files and thousands of other things, which overwhelm us with a messy desk. Kant is available in seat-height and as tablestand. Access the necessary materials fast, while maintaing cleaniness on the work surface.
Nils Holger Moormann

Wednesday 9 November 2011

Light reading


Airan Kang’s artistic lexis centers on book-shaped sculptures fashioned out of resin and LEDs... Made with LED devices that emit colored lights programmed to continually change in brightness, hue and intensity, each “book” in this exhibition conflates material and ephemeral depictions of knowledge to realize the pluralistic spaces of our imagination.

For this exhibition, Airan Kang furthers her Digital Book Project. This virtual world was created as an homage to specific books that are her current sources of inspiration. Kang traveled around the world to visit and photograph different bookstores and famous libraries in order to then recreate each environment as digitized versions of the original simulacra. The familiarity of these places gives Kang’s lurid universe an unexpected and sublime sense of organic beauty.

Each of Kang’s unique book covers are modified appropriations of the original covers rather than an exact replica. The “hyper books” are then arranged in stacks to show Kang’s growing interest in the relationship between text and the imagined literary space that the texts represent. This is further asserted as quoted text from each books in LED scrolls across the surface, making the information contained readily available and accessible to the viewer. Thus the content of each book is automatically visible, suggesting an ultramodern view of knowledge and intellect that is predetermined and entitled, rather than learned over time.
Airan Kang

Sunday 6 November 2011

Sea Defence shelves


Sea Defence is a beautiful and functional collection of furniture bringing together the sculptural, strong and iconic nature of sea defences, creating elegant, usable functional pieces of furniture. The collection is made up from the simple shape inspired by Sea Defences, that line the coasts of Britain. These free standing shelves are hand crafted in Scotland from carefully selected materials, layered birch is pressed to this sculptural shape and finished by hand.
Andy Murray

Thursday 3 November 2011

Revolving door bookshelf

A former logo and sign factory has been transformed into a showroom for K-MB Creative Network where fashion brands can be presented in a flexible space. With a rotating bookshelf door.
sigurdlarsen