Centuries before they became chic collectors items, traditional Tansu chests from Japanese country farmers were used for storage by simple country folk.

The hardware was traditionally created from forged iron with a black finish created by applying rapeseed oil to the hot metal, and sometimes from copper allowed to age naturally.

Tansu chests include a tremendous variety of uses, from ship’s strong boxes, families’ clothing storage, peddler’s chests and kitchen cupboards. Tansu reflect what Japanese treasured and safeguarded, used daily and kept private. Tansu might hold swords, valuables, tea utensils, fine kimono, documents, foodstuffs or tools.

The humble Tansu embodied Japanese aesthetic ideals such as asymmetry, rusticity, and quiet elegance. These chests, some of which were also used as a staircase, have been passed down for generations.

Kaidan dansu or literally stair-chests doubled as staircases. Ancient Japan had no building codes, so there are no railings to make for a safe climb, and of course a rowdy horde of hefty teenagers could not race down these stairs. Care and respect was ingrained in the culture, and it took a careful and slender householder to navigate this stair.

Borrowing from the Japanese tradition, modern woodworking shops have undertaken to produce Tansu-inspired storage in stairs, even when there is no side access at all, as here.

Although there is no stringer in a Tansu stair chest, it is safe to stand on because each step is a complete box, laid on a sturdy foundation of boxes below. Tansu can make practical way to get to a loft space, as the Hollywood cabinetmaking companyThe Laboratory shows.

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Tansu Chests – Practical Storage Stairs from Ancient Japan

Here’s a great kids sofa from DesignSkin for the budding industrial designer or interior architect in the family. As a reader of this blog – you might have one of those.

The whole thing is delivered as a puzzle shape consisting of an outer squared frame and ten inner blocks. It doesn’t take long for kids to see the possibilities of what amounts to a kid-sized lego system.

A light steel frame is padded well inside the sofa to help support the shape of each of the pieces. The pieces are covered with a non toxic material that makes the sofa safe for kids who suffer from dust allergy – and makes it easy to clean as well.

It’s durable and safe.

But that doesn’t mean that the places it can build are “safe”. Skeletor’s castle was a scary place for my kids when they were little. But that didn’t stop them from going ahead and building it anyway.

::Puzzle Sofa by Designskin

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Building Blocks for Next Gen Industrial Designers

In a straightforward celebration of joinery, the central clump of sticks is supported and held together by these darker green pieces looped over an empty space over what will form the last stick on the edge of the clump, which is also the top of the leg unit. Once the leg is attached, the stool stands up.

Their sweet Croquet collection was inspired by the designers’ recollection of childhood games of croquet: the connections look a little like the mallets used to play croquet. Each piece could be shipped flat, and then easily snapped together in clumps like pop beads.
The only components are the wooden sticks, and the painted metal connectors.

WIS Design is an interior design firm that also does some playful product design, headed by Lisa Widén and Anna Irinarchos.

Source: Daily Tonic

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WIS Celebrates Joinery in Juvenile Benches from Sticks

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3. A chair designed by Architect Michelle Kauffman – designer of the gorgeous Glide House prefabs, with a twist. This chair is actually made entirely  of Kauffman-designed building blocks. Just the thing to bring out the creativity in your budding architect!

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3 Fun Ideas 4 Kids

MyFab has an innovative idea that solves a real problem. One of the scariest things for anyone starting out in product design businesses is not knowing how many to make of any  new product design. It’s always a leap of faith that your brilliant idea will be appreciated and actually sell. Especially if you make very high-end designer furniture; each piece can be quite an investment in time and money.

A possible solution is in MyFab’s new site that is launching in California next month and will provide an online venue for start-up designers to get feedback on the popularity of high end furniture designs before committing to production runs.

It’s like taking viewers into the studio of your design office and saying to your potential future customers – which of these ideas on the drawing board now would you prefer to see developed. It takes the R out of R & D. If you get the research done first and find that nobody cares about the idea you thought was your winner this season – you won’t waste time and money developing it.

And it’s all as easy as the click of a mouse. Site visitors come and vote on the pieces that they would like to buy most. When there is a clear trend, then only the most obviously popular pieces are built. It is a great way to jumpstart design businesses. Designers would get the real-world feedback than generally only comes in the form of the school of hard knocks, once you have committed to production lines.

Then MyFab sources the production of the high end furniture directly from the factories in China that supply private-label furniture to European retailers. The designer does away with the middleman. By producing only the most popular ones on demand, this eliminates inventory, showroom, and catalog costs, resulting in Myfab’s prices being 50 to 80% lower than comparable retail prices.

Image: MyFab

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MyFab.com – R & D Made Easy for Design Biz Startups

cWave by designer Gianmarco Blini is a modular bookcase like no other. Made of a single powder-coated aluminum sheet, it offers plenty of customized solutions, as it easily turns into a furniture with a design of your own. Light, simple and neat, with endless transformation possibilities, cWave offers lots of flexibility and space for all those books you love. The additional bottom containers makes it even more practical and useful.  It comes in two standard finishes – white and aluminum, but custom colors are available upon request. [via]

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cWave: Modular Bookcase by Gianmarco Blini

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Regina II from Poltrona Frau – Classic Armchair with a Twist

Recently graduated from Sweden’s Konstfack University, Japanese designer Sachiko Segawa presents her final degree project Take Kagu. Its name literally means “bamboo furniture” and is inspired by Segawa’s childhood memories of a bamboo forest and a new material – bamboo plywood. Using this new bamboo material, the designer created several pieces of furniture which in her words should “create a bamboo forest feeling “. Though there are several problems with bamboo forests, continues Segawa, bamboo is regarded as very ecological and sustainable material. We sincerely wish good luck to this new designer and lots of inspiration in the process of creating great pieces of modern furniture like these ones.

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Take Kagu: Modern Bamboo Furniture by Sachiko Segawa

So how do you handle this problem? Look for tables and chairs that can serve double-duty. You’ll probably want to avoid heavy overstuffed furniture and opt for lighter pieces that can be easily arranged. Fortunately, there are more tables than ever that can seamlessly convert from cocktail to full-size dining table, allowing those of us with even the smallest apartments to host sit-down gatherings.

For example, The Mascotte Table (below) by Calligaris is a good option for those with a living room but no dining room. The table serves as a comfy little cocktail or coffee table — until you press a button and joila!, the table pops up to dining height. At full height, the table surface can double in size, accommodating four to six diners. Made in Italy, the table costs about $985.

Similarly, the Hydra table (below) can perform double duty as cocktail or dining table. Introduced in 1996 by Gary Gianakis, the table uses an inventive hydraulic lift operated by foot pedal to maneuver the table top up or down. The table comes in several different variations, including with a glass or corian tabletop and a wooden, steel or chrome base. The table also comes in a variety of diamers and retails for around $1300.

The Tetra by Bellato is a floor-seated dining table inspired by Asian design.As a cocktail table, the table boasts a “carabottino” style tabletop. But when it’s time to dine, flexible shelves can be pulled out, adding plenty of table space for hungry diners. The table comes in beech with a double-face blue/beige laminate shelves or Iroko with black/beige laminate. It also comes in wenge with white/beige laminate. The table retails for about $1500.

Finally, The Mealbox by Alet and Dag Igland of Igland Design in Norway starts off as a 27 x 31 inch box that stands less than 18 inches high. But like a magic jack in the box, the box opens up into jigsaw-like pieces that assembles to a length of 90 inches and seats six people.

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Design Dilemma: Dining without the Dining Room

Nature has always been an inspiration for creative minds. A Japanese designer who calls himself “Nosigner” makes no exception. Inspired by the perfect shape of minerals, he designed Hex – a sofa that resembles a hexagonal single-crystal. Nosigner has cleverly wrapped his creation in plywood, which envelops the lower part of the seat and covers the side edges. Hex not only looks amazing, but also gets built-in mini-tables that can be used for putting cups, for example. There are no differentiated armrests, but the sofa’s sloped shoulders carry out this function. Absolutely stunning, don’t you think?

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The Hex Sofa by Nosigner