barber osgerby designs planophore room divider and book shelf for vitra

barber osgerby designs planophore room divider and book shelf for vitra
image courtesy of barber osgerby

at milan’s salone del mobile, vitra presents a wide range of projects developed by british designers edward barber & jay osgerby as part of their 2014 home collection. after exhibiting tipton chair in 2011, five new works developed with the swiss furniture manufacturer are showcased, demonstrating the sense of precision and care that defines barber osgerby’s work.

envisioned as shelving system that doubles as a room divider, ‘planophore’ features rotating vertical panels that allow for the unit’s transformation. named after the first stable model airplane powered by twisted rubber bands, the shelf underlines the designers’ interest in the construction of transportation vessels, further reflected in the product’s materiality and production techniques.

‘planophore’ by edward barber & jay osgerby
image courtesy of barber osgerby

when the vertical aluminum panels are positioned parallel to the shelves the unit becomes a partition element, while set perpendicularly, they divide the shelves into varying compartments to accommodate books and similar objects. allowing a variety of different configurations, the rotation axes of the panels are offset in depth, forming numerous visually engaging arrangements. ‘planophore’ is available in a range of heights and widths, from a deep sideboard to a tall unit with five shelves.

jay osgarby spoke to designboom about the challenges of constructing the product, ‘the shelving presented huge technical challenges, because it looks very simple, but all the brackets move. so in fact when you look at it there’s nothing holding the shelves up. of course vitra can’t do anything that doesn’t fulfill all the norms and guidelines for use… and of course that makes things very complicated. so overcoming those hurdles and still being able to produce things which offer the product in the way we envisaged it in the beginning is a real challenge.’

other pieces in the collection include the ‘mariposa sofa’, a couch with a flexibly tilting side designed to offer a greater degree of comfort; ‘zeb bar stool’, and the paired products the ‘wood bench’ and ‘wood table’. 

‘mariposa sofa’ by edward barber & jay osgerby
image © vitra

‘mariposa sofa’ by edward barber & jay osgerby
image courtesy of barber osgerby

‘zeb bar stool’ by edward barber & jay osgerby
image courtesy of barber osgerby

‘wood table’ 2000 mm by edward barber & jay osgerby
image © vitra

wood table 2200 mm by edward barber & jay osgerby and wood bench 2200 mm by edward barber & jay osgerby
image © vitra

‘wood bench’ 2600 mm by edward barber & jay osgerby
image © vitra

portrait of jay osgerby taken at salone del mobile 2014
image © designboom

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