Designed by Naoki Hirakoso and Takamitsu Kitahara, the Kai Table has multiple internal compartments, but with the twist that each of them takes the form of a hidden compartment as seen on other furniture.

I’ve always been a sucker for hidden compartments, and although the location of the compartments are quite obvious given the size of the piece, it still presses all the right buttons for me.

While reading about secretary desks, I came across a related type I had never heard of before, the mechanical desk. A fad of the 1700s, these desks featured mechanisms that hid shelves and surfaces when not in use. It’s a real shame that these didn’t make a comeback when computers became widespread. Computer desks were dreadful. While hiding a 21 inch CRT that weight 150 pounds wouldn’t have been easy, the idea hiding materials when they are not needed appeals to me.

A modern interpretation of the mechanical desk is the Crescendo C2 from Stilvoll. I like how it looks like a drafting table, but expands to reveal bins. Of course, the role these bins play could have been solved with a traditional divided drawer. Still, this got me thinking.

I’ve considered getting a desktop computer, yet I don’t know what I would do with it. At work I love my MacPro and its three 24 inch LCDs, and part of me would love to have that setup at home, even if I don’t do much coding at home. If I ever took to telecommuting regularly, I’d need such a setup, including the Steelcase Leap chair, as even a 17 inch laptop just doesn’t quite cut it. Assuming I had desktop computer with multiple displays, I wouldn’t like having the monitors dominating the desk space. Yes, LCDs have a much smaller footprint than CRTs, but they still are visually imposing. Sometimes that’s what you want, but sometimes it’s not. A mechanical desk that could retract the screens would be great. Even better, if the desktop could expand. Perhaps a second pullout spring loaded leaf, kind of the like the Crescendo C2, but with a pushdown panel that has the screens mounted on swivel arms. Fold up the monitors and push them down into a little protected area behind the desk. Hide the tower and assorted wires in pedestal, and put file drawers in the other pedestal. (Personally, I prefer desks with legs rather than pedestals, but such a desk would look weird with big solid front on it.)

This is something I’m going to need to draw out.

Writing about traveling bookcases and other dead media storage solutions got me thinking about other furniture that always seems pregnant with possibilities, yet just isn’t practical anymore: secretary desks, and travel desks.

I love all the cubby holes in the secretary desks. Holes full of letters, bills, and checks. Drawers containing pens, ink wells, and seals. All of it lockable. It’s very structure conveys “Important stuff happens here.” Need to do serious work on the go? Get a travel desk, the attache case’s awkward cousin.

While tasks like answering correspondence and paying bills have remained, the form they have taken has changed. No longer are we physically shuffling atoms around, but rather simply information. Email, online banking, and all the rest has replaced paper. Similarly, we no longer need travel desks, as our laptop contains everything that the desk, could and much more. Add a network connection, and almost nothing is out of reach. It seems increasing clear that physical media is dying. Newspaper circulation is down. CD sales have fallen. DVD and bluray are now seen as a transition technology as streaming is becoming increasingly widespread. (Thus Netflix’s price hike.) With the advent of eReaders and tablet computers, even the books and magazines seems in danger.

We’re losing the need to deal with physical items, and as a side effect, it seems like we’re losing an ability to signal our tastes; which is ironic, given how personalization and sharing has taken over the web. When visiting someone’s home, we would occupy ourselves by perusing each other’s bookshelves. The books, CDs, and DVDs were essentially the tag clouds of the physical world. They weren’t there just for storage, but also to signal our personality. Our collections not only express how we see ourselves, but also how we want others to see us.

Case in point: My CD collection. For years, I my CD collection was “abnormally” small. I guess I trace it back to when my parents gave me a CD player for Christmas in high school, but no CDs. (My mom rightly said that was because she had no idea what CD I would want.) I eventually went out and bought – for reasons I can not explain other than I was a 14 year old in 1991 that listened to the same Southern Illinois top 40 station he grew up with – Boys-II-Men’s Cooleyhighharmony. (This along with three other CDs I would eventually disown by removing them from my collection.) I had no idea about music, and being an adolescent, I aped my friends’ tastes. By the time I went to college, I believe I had twelve CDs, only about nine of them did I take to college. (The afore mentioned Colleyhighharmony was not one of them.) I tended to avoid purchasing CDs because they seemed expensive, and I got burned by a bad purchase or two. As a a result, my collection was heavily weighted towards They Might Be Giants and R.E.M., because that’s what my friends listened to. In one since it was outsider music, since no one at Z-R besides Billy listened to that, yet I was buying it to fit in. I didn’t always care for the music in my collection. I enjoyed it, but I was embarrassed by wanting something harder and louder. None of my friends owned Nevermind.

I always knew my collection was small, but going to college and seeing people bring in box containing a hundred CDs just made it clear just how small my collection was. I felt inadequate. Like I missed out something important.

I decided to correct this. By the end of college, I think I doubled my collection to about 20, and my tastes expanded to include Nine Inch Nails. As my friend John can attest to, this was due to conscious effort to change my musical tastes to fit in. I wanted “CS music,” and Nine Inch Nails and Ministry were it. When I got my first job, I decided to greatly expanded my CD collection. My goal was 100 CDs. I thought only then would I have I a collection that was a socially acceptable size. I went expanding my collection with gusto. Every week I went to the Arlington Height’s Best Buy on Palatine Road and would buy three CDs. (I think there was a deal when you bought at three.) I bought the entire Nirvana catalog. I bought the entire Alice in Chains catalog. I bought and bought. Anything that struck me as interesting at the time I bought. Grunge died sometime just prior to the turn of the 21st century, and so I experimented with the early aughts fad of electronica. Aphex Twin and Massive Attack being two of the better pickups from that era. When I went to grad school, I turned to used CDs to feed my habit. (I can thank P-Mac in Carbondale for my Jesus and Mary Chain collection.) During this time, even as I crossed the 200 mark, I still felt like my collection was small. It wasn’t until someone saw it and said, “You have a lot of CDs,” did I realize that my collection was now kind of large. It is about 240 now. (During the height of my buying spree, I could have told you exactly how large it was.) It’s so large, that when I transferred it from shelves to the media cabinet it nearly filled it to capacity. (Ironically, the whole point to the media cabinet was that I had outgrown the need to display – and thus be validated by – a wall of plastic disks.)

Prior to my move to California, I ripped the entire collection to MP3 and carried it in a 250 GB external hard drive. That’s when the advantages of leaving behind a physical form really came clear to me. I’ve bought some CDs since then. Maybe 10 or 15 (The last CD I bought was the Social Network’s soundtrack.) but mostly I’ve downloaded music. Having rooms devoted to collections no longer interest me. (Thus the desire to having a closable cabinet for the CDs.) Yet, I miss the social signals. Sean Bonner seems to have had a similar experience with books.

But what replaces the bookshelf? The tablet computer on the coffee table? No. Picking up, and using another’s device without permission is too much. The bookshelf was passive. Guests couldn’t help but look at it, as it was part of the environment. We still have the need / desire to send social signals passively. Picking an item out of the displayed media collection allowed one to immediately break the ice with strangers. It solved the chit-chat problem. If our bookshelves are empty, what fills this need? A tag cloud and digital slide show on a framed tablet, ala iPad + Velcro = ♥? A wunderkammer full of physical objects that can’t be digitized? I don’t know, but having a terabyte external drive hooked up to my TV, and Netflix queue just doesn’t cut it.

It seems like there’s a need for furniture to update to our nonphysical needs. Perhaps the furniture needs to integrate with our digital world. Not like those atrocious “computer desks” of yesteryear, but maybe something else.

This huanghuali wood traveling bookcase (a “tushu shinggui” if you want t be)
sold recently for $47,000 at Christie’s. It’s picture had been bouncing around the blogosphere for a while, complete with comments about how beautiful it is. The stain really brings out the wood grain, and it look like the doors were cut from the same board. Which isn’t surprising, given that it dates from the early 1600s. It’s a very simple piece, with very little ornamental woodwork. The metal work is also very simple, but together they make a very elegant package. Unfortunately, there are no photos online of the box’s interior. Inside it contains two small drawers (for writing instruments?) and a single shelf.

When I first saw the bookcase, I immediately thought of another traveling bookcase, the USLHE traveling library. Both are similar in both form and function. (The tushu shinggui is undoubtedly better looking though.) The USLHE libraries were government owned crates of books that were issued on a rotating basis to lighthouses. Every so many weeks, when the lighthouse was resupplied, the libraries would be switched.

Both of these bookcases remind me of my media cabinet. Again, it’s the general shape. Of course my cabinet was designed to hold CDs and DVDs, not books, nor was it it meant to be particularly mobile. Still, they both store media compactly behind closed doors.

Previously. Previously.

When I first saw the Pinball coffee table back in 2006, I thought it looked cool (colored lights shining up on people’s faces always brings a warmth to the heart of this scifi geek.), but at the same time, I couldn’t imagine actually having one.

A couple of years ago, I went to Shorty’s in Seattle. This bar has booths where the table has a lit pinball playfield in it, just like the pinball coffee table. (In fact, Shorty’s was the inspiration for the coffee table.) Suddenly, I thought that pinball coffee tables were actually feasible!

I talked to some friends about it, but they’re all against the idea. As Ming put it, “It would look like a kid’s room.” It’s hard to really argue with her, when you see Ed Cheung’s table in the living room.

I’m not criticizing the build, but I guess the idea. (Even though, I still kind of want one. Especially if it remained playable.) It’s a party piece, but not everyday piece. That’s what I’m saying.

So we got a real coffee table of Craigslist for free. It’s nice, much better than this thing. I still went ahead and made the table though. There was no real reason not to, since we can find something to use it for. I give it a C in high school shop. I talked to my dad, and put it together with pocket screws using a Kreg Jig Jr kit. I tried using the right angle clamp, but I never got it to work. Whenever I’d lock it down, it would pull out of the pocket hole just enough to slide down, destroying the flat inner surface so you couldn’t put it back in the same hole. (My dad gets the clamp to work, but I never did.) If I had to do it over again, I would have gotten just a normal corner clamp.

I don’t really like it, but I guess it’s okay for being made out of scraps. I just wish I paid more attention when put the pocket holes in.

It’s heavy, and it’s square. I’ll give it that.

A couple of months ago Ming and I decided redo the closet in the bedroom, since it was falling apart. We replaced the rod, and was going to replace the bent shelf with a new shelf long shelf, and then add some side shelves. So we went down to Home Depot and bought one of those crappy particle board covered in white melamine. Unfortunately, we had the guy cut the side shelves an inch too narrow, and left the long board way too wide. (Lesson: Always bring a ruler, and know exactly how big you’re talking about.)

While we were able to hack together something to use side shelves, we were left with three unused side shelves and long shelf. Since we need a better coffee table than the one we’re using, we decided to knock together one from the failed closet attempt. I think the only parts I’m going to need is a saw (probably will by a handsaw since this isn’t really worth buying a jig for), and probably a four half inch square by 18 inch long blocks so that I have something to screw into. Maybe, I’ll need another two solid blocks that are 23 inches long for the back as well. Maybe even four more 23.5 inches long to run along the top too.

While I like the idea of building a table, this is going to look so horrible, it’s not even funny. Wood screws right through the sides, chipped melamine, and peeling edge tape. It’s going to pretty embarrassing. So why am I posting about this? I don’t know. I’m stupid I guess.

Well, maybe it won’t look that bad.

Sketch Up Model

Macetech built this table to demo their shiftbrite RGB LEDs and a Seeeduino. It’s a 9 x 9 grid, but since each LED has its own controller, the cost quickly climbs.

While not a table, Dave Clausen‘s LED Cylinder is a good resource for discussing how to wire up set of addressable RGB LEDs, along with some good resources to parts and the like.

Recently I’ve been thinking about a LED displays. Originally, I was thinking about a full 640 x 480 display, but after doing the math, that idea quickly shrank to a more manageable 32 x 24 display. While part of me thinks that having one of these tables would be interesting, I can’t help but think that in reality they’d just be ugly and too bright.

I started to think about LED displays because my “coffee table” (It’s actually more an end table.) has a glass top and holes cut out in the back for electrical cables to pass through. What I really want is a multitouch display like either of these two guys are building. However, a multitouch is still pretty hacky and more DIY than I want right now. I like the idea of owning one of these tables, I just don’t want to build it.

NC State industrial design grad student, Joe Harmon is building a car by hand. Not just any car. A sports car that can reach 240 MPH. Not just any 700 HP, 240 MPH sports car. A 700 HP, 240 MPH sports car made almost entirely of wood. The body? Wood. The dash? Wood. The seats? Well, they’re wicker. The wheels? Oh, they’re wood too. The suspension? Yes, it’s wood too.

Because he wants strength, but also a reduced weight (wood has a higher strength-to-weight ratio than steel or aluminum), he is creating the body out of custom made plywood that consists of layers of eighth inch wide cherry veneer strips that are then weaved together, and glued on top of a weaved birch veneer, a core of balsa wood, and then another woven layer of birch. The panels are then vacuumed formed into shape, using the same technique that’s used for carbon-fiber composites. All told, about 30 species of wood are used to make up the car.

According to the last update, which was about a year ago, the outer shell was complete, but the internal components such as the V8 Cadillac Northstar engine and six speed Corvette transmission were yet to be installed. However, the car has drawn industrial sponsors like Delta/Porter-Cable, and has been making the rounds at different car shows.

Thanks Dad!

The problem with secretary cabinets is that they’re not useful as furniture today. They used to be used as the nexus of all bills and correspondence of the house, but now the laptop has replaced this. I kind of like the look of an open secretary, but it’s completely useless due to the specialized nature of the furniture.

I think what I like about the Chinese pharmacy cabinets is that mystery they project. All the drawers look the same, but no matter what ails you, the pharmacist can open up some seemly random drawer and give you a potion to cure you. As a design per se, the cabinets are just more stylish filing cabinets.

I have no idea what I would do with a drawer cabinet, but I think I want one.

After the jump are some cabinets that I’ve been trying to draw inspiration from.

I particularly like the plain drawer fronts on Jon Stam’s curiosity cabinet. The RFID feature of his cabinet is cool, but it’s a bit a novelty that I doubt I’d use, especially given the nonportability and inherent fragility of the feature.

Ffffound linked to this cabinet on the Style Files.

I really like the eclectic nature of the front of this cabinet. The different color drawers really accent the shapes of drawers. I don’t care for the peacock drawer in the center, though.

3rings linked to this cabinet by Rob Southcott. He used scrapped wood in his creation. While I don’t think I want to go with the bands of color on each drawer or the nontraditional shape, I do think he pulled off both here. It was this photo that made me consider nonuniformity in whatever my design will be.

schubLaden sells shelves with integrated drawers, along with more traditional cabinets. While I don’t like the grain on the drawers of this particular shelf, I like the idea of challenging the conventions of particular pieces of furniture.

These Chinese pharmacy cabinets show how dominating a Wall of Boxes area, especially given their uniformity. For some reason I thought that CPCs were unlabeled like this one:

but I was wrong. It seems like many of them are labeled. Either by simple notes, or like these with what appears to be either painted labels or engravings.

And of course a secretary cabinet. I don’t like the overall style of the cabinet at all. It’s a bad color and it’s ornamentation is clumsy. This is not something I would want in my house, or really any house. It’s the kind of thing you’d expect to see at a pole barn “antique” auction. This is just here to get me to think about the drawers, doors, and pigeon holes of the secretary.