In our modern and urban homes of today, living in a space-efficient and smart manner is vital, or else we will end up in stuffy and overcrowded home environments. An overcrowded and claustrophobic home leads to an overcrowded and claustrophobic mind. Hence, clever space management is something we need to give due importance to while planning and designing our homes. Modular and transformative furniture designs can play a huge role in this. Multifunctional pieces of furniture that cater to our various needs while saving space, can create an open and well-distributed home. Especially since we spend most of our time at home, in this COVID-19 world, we need to pay more attention to creating home spaces that are complementary to our mental health and our daily routines. And in such a situation, modular furniture designs promise to come to our rescue!
Chaise Renversée is a desk that can also transform into a long chair by the famous French architect Pierre-Louis Gerlier. The literal translation of Chaise Renversée is ‘chair overturned’. Since we are all cooped up in our homes, we are constantly finding ways to optimize space. Especially if you live in a city, you are likely to have everyday objects that are modular so that you have a functional space. Our current situation and the need to be flexible within a small space is exactly what inspired Gerlier to design the Chaise Renversée. It is the perfect blend of work from home and Netflix from home into one piece of modern furniture, it provides a stable table area to work and can then transform into the ‘Chaise Lounge’ when you want to relax.
Tumble is the perfect example of intuitive product design which is well-tailored for ultra-modern interiors. It is essentially a platform that serves as a chair, side table, bench seat, storage unit, bookshelf, center table, or lounger. Depending on the nature of use and the available interior space, Tumble can be put to good use with a bit of creative thinking. The furniture piece is crafted out of natural agglomerated cork and natural oak, making it good for the environment too. The use of these biodegradable materials should not let you into believing that the modular platform lacks structural strength. It can take the weight of an above-average weighing adult and the only thing you need to cautious of is to keep water away from it.
KUR!O’s Shelving Unit doesn’t just let you build a shelf, it lets you build YOUR OWN shelf the way you see fit. KUR!O’s design features a simple grid base that you wedge shelving-plates into. The plates interlock with each other, creating walls and floors for your shelf, allowing you to store all your belongings in the dedicated spaces you planned out for them! The base of the shape-shifting, infinitely customizable shelf is its underlying grid, made from sandwiched wood-fiber boards. The cuts in the grid go as much as 20mm deep, allowing you press-fit powder-coated steel panels into it. The 2mm thick panels are heavy-duty enough to take on large loads, making the KUR!O robust, despite the fact that there isn’t any screwing or gluing of parts.
Even though these wooden chairs might look visually similar to the IKEA ones at first glance, they actually work with indoor settings too unlike the usual patio seating. They are classier and can be used in any room/interior setting. The first wooden chair has strings that form the seat and the backrest, it may make you doubtful of comfort but the strings act like fabric and contour around your body for maximum comfort. The string tension also makes sure that you are well supported. The second chair is like a classic window transformed into a chair with one swivel motion. Because it is a smooth, singular vertical plank when closed, it is easier to stack/store. Another favorite from this furniture range is the fold-out table with storage, it is ideal for small urban apartments or for a kid-friendly room to keep things tidy and packed away.
The Un-Lim collection was specifically created so you can switch up the function and form of your furniture to fit your needs instead of going out to buy a new piece every time something changes. Un-Lim stands for unlimited and that truly shines through this set. Un-Lim is an ageless collection that can be molded and changed over time – think of it as redesigning your own furniture using the same pieces to create a whole new form and function! It comes with 8 different parts that you can combine to match your space and needs. Turn it from a bed to a table to a chair seamlessly. The separate modules come with a notebook that tells the story of its production timeline from the furniture’s point of view! It also includes a piece of wood from the tree that was used and a shoutout to all wood craftsmen who worked on your set.
Designed by Geoffrey Pascal, this furniture collection makes life easier for those who want to work on their bed without the risk of napping! The 3 pieces in the Grafeiphobia’s Unexpected Office range are based on the frame of a basic, slatted wooden bed. It gives a true ergonomic benefit by supporting the user to comfortably be in NASA’s Neutral Body Position which was developed to promote better health in astronauts when they live in a zero-gravity environment. The user can work in different positions that are as natural as being in bed while supporting the body’s posture as if they are working on a desk. The weight is distributed across multiple points in the body which is healthier than the seated desk position which concentrates force downwards on the lower back.
NÓMADA is a modular, multi-purpose bedside table. The team behind NÓMADA decided to attain the bedside table’s modularity through the material used during its production process by carving and integrating notches, buttons, and twisted, narrow chutes into each wooden and steel panel used for construction. The end result makes up a bedside table that appears simple and whose purpose seems singular upon first glance, but when deconstructed, the possibilities for restructuring NÓMADA are laid out in front of you, all you have to do is mix-and-match as your tabular needs guide you. NÓMADA is capable of producing twelve different configurations so that it can adapt to any of your needs or living spaces.
Inspired by the Dutch painter Piet Mondrian’s composition of form and color, the Mondrian setup was made to allow a wide range of applications and blend into any interior setting. The aim was to solve three issues we experience with watching TV as we currently do – taking up space, not matching with the aesthetics, and lack of expandability. Urban apartments and single-person households need to maximize their space and should not have to choose between a large appliance and furniture when they can have both. Talking about interior aesthetics, TVs are now increasingly slimmer while the furniture remains warm and cozy – this causes a visual mismatch when the two are put together. Mondrian’s design serves both purposes with one seamless structure. TVs are now being used in many ways and need to be able to adapt to the different content it supports, not just static pre-made products.
CatYou in a Circle is a wonderful display of modular pieces that work for both humans and pets. The set includes a floor sofa and a coffee table that aims to create a relaxing space for cats and their owners to have some downtime. The hollow armrests and backrest offer cats a playground and hiding territory while the coffee table provides a place to sleep. The woven bamboo texture makes it possible for owners to see their cats even when they are hiding and play with them through its holes. The size of holes is different in different parts of the furniture to adapt to the needs of the pet as well as humans. The backrest holes are smaller to make the cats feel more secure. But holes above are bigger so that when people lean on the sofa, they can see through the backrest and find their cats underneath.
The MOON Cabinet is a timeless looking piece that is crafted from solid wood finished off with rounded corners that give it an organic form. “We got the three elements from deconstructing traditional wooden cabinets and immovable system furniture,” says award-winning furniture designer Chuang. MOON allows the user to have a flexible lifestyle as this one cabinet serves many different purposes thanks to its modular build. You can combine, assemble, and deconstruct it to fit your space or transform it from storage to seating. Just like the phases of the moon, the shape of this cabinet changes to fit different needs – in fact, it has a little circular cutout detail to symbolize that. I love that you can stack it up or take it apart to change the height of the piece as a whole.
