En bokhylla bör framför allt annat vara funktionell, men ibland kan funktionen överskugga utseendet. Arch har en avskalad form som tar möbeln tillbaka till dess väsentlighet, ett bärande plan, varpå en enkel estetik applicerats i form av klassiskt böjträ. En hylla som lär följa med från hem till hem.
Fogia
An Oxfam bookshop in Swansea has been inundated with so many copies of the erotic novel that they’ve started begging women to stop bringing them in. The shop now has so many copies of the book, they’ve built a fort out of them.
Metro
The layering of vertical and horizontal lines depicts a certain process from a natural foundation to the man who has created his cultural products: rocks, turf, man, shoes, bread and books.
Culturehouse
"At a time when 1 in 10 young people have a diagnosable mental health issue, public libraries across England are today launching a scheme to support them with expert endorsed books available to borrow for free. Reading Well for young people is part of the hugely successful Reading Well Books on Prescription scheme and will provide 13-18 year-olds with high-quality information, support and advice on a wide-range of mental health issues such as anxiety, depression, eating disorders and self-harm, and difficult life pressures, like bullying and exams."
More details at The Reading Agency
Almost 8,000 jobs in UK libraries have disappeared in six years, about a quarter of the overall total, an investigation by the BBC has revealed.
BBC
Designed to go against the wall or in the middle of the room as a divider with peek-through open cutouts. Even more funky, this bookshelf transforms to any space as it is created to stand horizontally or vertically with nine adjustable shelf fitting any which way.
Shiner
The Pi Workstation functions as a desk, bookshelf and occasional chair. In addition to these functions, there is the option to remove the bookshelf and transform the desk into a 2 top dining table.
Joe Manus
A library in the shape of an open book is expected to open next year in Dubai. The Mohammed bin Rashid Library in Al Jaddaf will hold more than 1.5 million volumes, 1 million audio books and 2 million e-books, making it the world’s largest electronic collection and the biggest library in the Arab world.
The National
What if my bookshelf is female and also male? And what do we mean by male and female books, anyway? Those written by women with female protagonists, or a style and substance beyond this which male writers have access to, or can assume?
Arifa Akbar in The Independent
What happens when you begin to build a library in childhood and then find you have too many books? From a small collection held together by a pair of plaster of Paris horse-head bookends to books piled on stairs, and in front of each other on shelves, books cease to furnish a room and begin to overwhelm it. At the end of 2013, novelist Linda Grant moved from a rambling maisonette over four floors to a two bedroom flat with a tiny corridor-shaped study. The trauma of getting rid of thousands of books raises the question of what purpose personal libraries serve in contemporary life and the seductive lure of the Kindle. Both a memoir of a lifetime of reading and an insight into how interior décor has banished the bookcase, her account of the emotional struggle of her relationship with books asks questions about the way we live today.
Kindle Single
"It is now known that the explorer carried with him dictionaries, encyclopaedias and books chronicling other dangerous polar expeditions. He took established works by Dostoyevsky and Shelley - but also, explains Alasdair MacLeod from the RGS, newly published fiction by popular authors of the time."
BBC
A couple from Orkney have created an unusual memorial to friend who died unexpectedly. Betty's Reading Room has been created in a once derelict bothy in Tingwall in the Orkney Islands. Craig Mollison and Jane Spiers said they wanted to create a fitting tribute to their friend Betty Prictor.
BBC
Bookcases say as much about you as the books you read. So which style to choose? An interior designer offers some suggestions.
The New York Times
The bookcase comprises just a few ingeniously interconnected elements, which show Gianfranco Frattini's attention to the laws of statics and dynamics. It has four vertical struts and two rack and pinion poles at the two ends, all crafted from solid olive wood. The shelves, produced in MDF with olive essence veneer, can be positioned in the holes along the struts as desired with a minimum of eight and a maximum of 12 shelves. A special metal cylinder is attached to the ceiling to hold the bookcase in place. The Albero's frame is attached to this and the floor thanks to two adjustable metal ferrules that ensure its stability. The height of the bookcase can vary between 2.66 m to 3.26 m.
Poltrona Frau
Ebook sales for the UK’s five biggest publishers fell in 2015, according to a new report in the Bookseller, collectively declining 2.4%, to 47.9m units. It is the drop in numbers of books sold in this medium for the “big five” since the digital age began... “For those who predicted the death of the physical book, and digital dominating the market by the end of this decade, the print and digital sales figures from the big five for 2015 might force a reassessment,” wrote the Bookseller’s features editor Tom Tivnan.The Guardian
A modular shelf resembling herring fish bones that can be arranged in a variety of ways. The back panel is made of multi-layered plywood while the shelving surface is made from extremely thin curved sheet-metal.
Fancy.com
The ‘mobile library’ project is part of a larger initiative by the Seoul Innovation Park, and the city of Seoul, South Korea to revitalize a site originally occupied by the ministry of food and drug safety. a number of social companies and startups have been gathered, and will continually work from the site to address various social issues in the city.
Designboom and Archiworkshop
Mark Sutton and Zoe Norton Lodge love libraries. In fact, Mark’s parents met in a library and his mother is a former librarian. But when in history did the concept of a library first emerge? What were some of the most famous libraries from history? What are some of the most unusual libraries around the world? And what challenges assail the library in the modern day?
[I'm talking about unusual libraries around the world from around the 36:30 mark]
ABC
Dotting the countryside of New Zealand are dozens of tiny libraries – freestanding buildings that serve as meeting places, resource centres and lending libraries for the smaller regions located between larger urban areas. While New Zealand’s national public library culture thrives, these unassuming structures, having survived regular floods, aging populations, and the rise of the Internet, are mostly alive and continue to provide books for local readers.
BBC World Service
Antiquity is a homage to the historical icon Venus D’Arles... In full view, an intricate system of strategically placed mahogany shelves surround and veil the marble statue, allowing an interesting play with the seen and unseen. This wooden framework functions as a bookshelf that can hold eclectic items, but it also doubles as "scaffolding," paralleling the experience of a tourist visiting an antique sculpture under conservation.
Sebastian ErraZuriz
A single module, a piece of bentwood, the logical result of the meeting with a carpentry workshop specialized in bending wood.
Objet Optimisé
Ernest Race was invited by Jack Pritchard to redesign Egon Riss’s original Isokon Penguin Donkey and Bottleship in 1963. For his Bottleship Mark 2, Race developed a piece of similar dimensions to the Donkey but with a hinged lid under which glasses and bottles are stored creating a cross between a mini-bar and side table.
Isokonplus
Un poco aludiendo a las cuerdas de un ring de boxeo y la idea de una celosia, este rack sin puertas tradicionales deja ver su interior de forma simple con la cuerda elastica de protagonista, con esto buscaba hacer algo entretenido sin mayor complicación.
Emmanuel Gonzalez
"Books breathe as trees breathe. When all the books have gone our mental climate will have changed. It's a question whether we'll survive. Technology cannot replace a book. No matter that I can quickly find a digital version of a novel I'm looking for, I still fly into a rage when I discover I no longer have it, and remember who borrowed and didn't return it, five, 10, 20 years ago. For it is irreplaceable. It has my scribblings in it. The marginal expletives. The turned-down pages. The bus ticket or taxi receipt or even billet doux employed as a bookmark - not just the marginalia of an intellectual life but the detritus of the heart. And that you don't get on a Kindle, or a free e-book courtesy of Project Gutenberg. What you can't bend or throw or write on isn't, in the end, literature."
Howard Jacobson. More at BBC
A mobile bookstore on a Classic No. 33 Pashley cargo bicycle that allows for great books [have a close look at the stock...] to infiltrate the streets.
The National Design Collective
A book exchange and an urban marker. During the day, two of the walls pivot open like the covers of a book, welcoming people inside or to gather around the front. Visitors can take or leave something to read, or lounge quietly on the built-in seating
Atelier Kastelic Buffey
The Link Bookshelf unites on one side the soft and round, and on the other side, the sharp and pointy. Two poles interconnected. The shelf consists of 14 sub-elements made of laminated birch veneer individually oiled and waxed.
Dimensions: H. 29 cm. W. 27 cm. L. 239 cm.
Peter Qvist Lorentsen
Book And Bed is an 'accommodation bookshop'. Shared shower, toilet and shower space are available as well as two types of bed, compact and standard. The new hostel targets overseas and out of town travelers. Day rates as well as overnight.
Book and Bed
Ein Regalsystem,das für kleine Wohnung und das Lebensstil von junger Generation gestaltet wird."Library" ist ein Regalsystem,damit mann ganz einfach auf/abbauen und mitnehmen kann. Atelier Shan
Eine begehbare Raumskulptur verbindet zwei übereinander liegende Wohnungen in Düsseldorf. Dieses multifunktionale Element besteht aus in Stufenabstand um die Treppe umlaufende Bücherregale. Sie ist Bibliothek und Treppe zugleich. Das eingefügte Möbelstück greift die Gesamthöhe beider Wohnungen auf und schafft es diese zu einem Großen und Ganzen zu vereinen.
Dreihausfrauen
Now, there are signs that some e-book adopters are returning to print, or becoming hybrid readers, who juggle devices and paper. E-book sales fell by 10 percent in the first five months of this year, according to the Association of American Publishers, which collects data from nearly 1,200 publishers. Digital books accounted last year for around 20 percent of the market, roughly the same as they did a few years ago. E-books’ declining popularity may signal that publishing, while not immune to technological upheaval, will weather the tidal wave of digital technology better than other forms of media, like music and television.Read more at The New York Times
Conarte is the council for culture and art in the city of Monterrey, Mexico. Conarte aims to promote and stimulate artistic expression and supports the preservation and enrichment of culture. Our mission was to create a space that gives value to the experience of reading. A design-intelligent space was created for the bookshop and library granting value to the reading experience. Our design proposal focuses on creating a space that wraps the reader in. The bookshelves attend more that just their basic function and were designed to simulate a dome that plays with the visual perspective. The stands incorporate a color gradient finish that attributes depth. The illuminated half circle found in the back wall simulates the vanishing point of the structure, creating a perfect balance between color and perspective.
anagrama
The Little TARDIS Library is on a tour of the UK sharing stories with children and young people to help promote their love of reading. Stocked with hundreds of classic books (because the Little TARDIS Library is bigger on the inside) it will be landing in schools, libraries and parks.
Little Free Library UK
Each child has its own independent bedroom; the common living space is open and partitioned by elements of furniture which have all been designed so as to follow the sloping games of the roof-line, forming a landscape of “totems”. They include bookshelves and diverse storage spaces.
h2oarchitectes
"There is strong evidence that reading for pleasure can increase empathy, improve relationships with others, reduce the symptoms of depression and the risk of dementia, and improve wellbeing throughout life, new research carried out for The Reading Agency has found.
"Among the benefits it finds are improved social capital for children, young people and the general adult population; better parent-child communication and reduction of depression and dementia symptoms among adults. Another key finding of the report is that enjoyment of reading is a prerequisite for all these positive outcomes: people who choose to read, and enjoy doing so, in their spare time are more likely to reap all of these benefits."
More at The Reading Agency
