U135: Unfinished or Stacked = the Look

In preparation for the Keystone Cox, I completely cleared my desk area to clean thoroughly around my CPU, cords, monitor and peripherals. I decided it was also a great opportunity to examine all the items from this zone for things to purge. Well, I got sidetracked and the stacks of things are all still piled high on my table.

So, imagine my surprise when I see Michael Cannell’s post at the Dwell blog pointing out what might be a new design trend. Stacked objects.

Are stacked objects a design trend?

One of the most photographed works at the Milan Furniture Fair last month was a tower of drawers (below), by Shay Alkalay, a young Israeli designer.

I noticed the inkling of a pattern when Marc Sadler installed a series of undulating stacks of lit shades (above) at the Republic of Fritz Hansen showroom in SoHo during the International Contemporary Furniture Fair this weekend.

So why stacked? Here’s my theory: one of the current themes is for designers is to produce objects that could be considered works in progress, as if passing them off for completion to somebody else. Both of the stacks shown here conform to that idea by suggesting unfinished assemblage, like children’s blocks piled haphazardly.

That works for me. I wouldn’t want to rush my great work of sorting, cleaning, purging would I?

Update: I realized this theme of unfinished sorting and the stacking is something I have actually been thinking about for some time and hadn’t made the connections until I posted this short piece. This picture captivated me a couple years ago. I liked the frugal idea of being able to store a great many disparate things in a unified way without needing to purchase storage systems. The orange boxes could be any small boxes all painted to match. Using the ties just give the concept a real panache. I even marveled at how pottery might be better utilized for food storage (adapted with cork closers and discrete labels on the back) while keeping the look of a collection intact. Just one wall could thereby be transformed into massive storage for a urban dweller or those of us with tiny homes.

While my internet was down the past few days I worked on a plan for the second half of this year, approaching rapidly. Besides devoting my Wednesday post to the subject of local food, I want to incorporate a purge day every Monday for the last half of the year. This evolved from my review of my initial posts about the categories of things I needed to purge. There happened to be 26 categories, so I did a few name changes to follow my alphabetical format for this list.

Appliances 7/7
Bed Linens & Curtains7/14
Cleaning Supplies 7/21
DVD’s, Music 7/28
Equipment 8/4
Furniture Purging 8/11
Garden Tools & Materials 8/18
Hobby & Craft Stuff 8/25
Interior Décor Items and Plants 9/1
Jewelry, Shoes, Purses & Bags 9/8
Kitchen Linens: Napkins, Placemats Towels & Cloths 9/15
Lighting 9/22
Magazines and Books 9/29
Nails, Screws, Manual Tools & Fasteners 10/6
Office Supplies 10/13
Power Tools 10/20
Qualms about Framed Pictures & Photos 10/27
Records: Receipts, Files & Tax 11/3
Sewing Machine, Fabric & Sewing Box 11/10
Toiletries, Medicine, Cosmetics & Hair Products 11/17
Utensils, Dishes, Glasses, Cups & Flatware 11/24
Varied Materials : Wood, Stone, Cork, Hardware, etc. 12/1
Wardrobe 12/8
X-tra - Food Pantry 12/15
Yet more Bakeware, Pans 12/22
Zillion Bits of Paint, Plaster, etc. 12/29

I decided that even if I got antsy and purged any category prior to the date for posting, I would keep before and after photos for the sake of discussion. I will be checking back on Chile's Cut the Crap for tips I might use. Between now and the Summer Solstice I plan to Spring Clean and to fix things long put off. This will stretch to 4th of July if I get behind.