Tag Archives: Multifunctional

This multi-level side table becomes a piece of wall art when folded flat

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By their very name and nature, side tables often take a secondary role in a room. Some might even be hidden in corners or obstructed by other furniture. They do serve a purpose, of course, often as a temporary surface to put down phones, books, or cups. But when they aren’t in use, they can get in the way or be wasted space, especially if they’re not particularly noteworthy in terms of visual appeal. This foldable side table is already attractive when standing on its own, but you might still want to fold it away and hang it up on a wall anyway because it can add a dash of sophistication to the area as an aesthetic piece of modern wall art.

Designer: Vico Magistretti (Original), Francesco Meda and David Lopez Quincoces (Remaster)

The original Florian was already quite an oddity when it first appeared in 1989. A foldable side table was most likely rare and unconventional, but one that had two or even three tabletops was a peculiar embellishment that is uncommon even by today’s standards. What really made it special, though, is the fact that it looked so beautiful even when folded up that you could hang it on a wall, and none would be wiser that it was actually a functional side table rather than a modern artwork of circles and lines.

The 2021 remaster retains the original’s structure but adjusts the size for modern lifestyles while also expanding the color selection for a wider range of aesthetic tastes. The frame is still made with ash wood, now joined by visually contrasting brass mechanisms. The new colors now include mustard yellow, dark green, and brick red; all lacquered to give the side table wall art an eye-catching sheen.

There is a fourth color that feels like the union of past and present. The brushed veneer black ash is closer to the original Florian while still giving off a more contemporary vibe. The way it shows the wood’s natural veins even after treatment makes it an ideal “open-pore” display on your wall.

Whether standing as a two-layer side table holding your cups and books or hanging on a wall to enhance the room’s ambiance, the Florian demonstrates how a design can be timeless and enchanting even after decades. The table’s simple shapes combined with its ingenious folding mechanism bring a piece of furniture that is both functional and decorative in all its forms. You definitely won’t go wrong with this side table, and it might even amaze your guests when you take down what they presumed is just a wall decoration and turn it into a table for their use.

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This beautiful food container lets you use the lid as a plate without feeling awkward

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It’s not unusual for people to cook more food than they can finish in one sitting. That’s especially true for single-person households that have to save money by having leftovers they can eat the next day or so. Storage for these leftovers, however, sometimes becomes just a second thought, at least until you stare at your fridge or start preparing your meal using them. Food storage isn’t just about keeping food fresh and edible, though that is definitely a primary concern. Keeping them presentable is also a key factor that could affect your appetite, and this “two-way” container design concept helps store food the way you would eat them on a plate by officially making the dish cap serve as a plate as well.

Designer: Haechan Ryu

It might sound strange at first, but it’s actually not uncommon for people to use a food container’s lid as an ad hoc plate, both for reheating food as well as eating from it. This often happens when you store food in a deep dish, like a bowl, and then have to transfer it to a plate for serving. The back-and-forth moving of food from different containers and plates not only involves more work but also risks losing some of the flavors in the process.

Roll is an attempt to preserve not only the flavors of food but also their presentation. It eschews the traditional square or rectangular shape of food containers in favor of something round. Admittedly, it might not be the most space-efficient shape, especially when you’re stocking a lot of food in the fridge. It is, however, more presentable and visually interesting, and the single-person households these containers are designed for usually don’t store as much food as large families anyway.

What makes Roll different from bowl food containers (which do exist, of course) is that it wholeheartedly embraces the culture of using the lid or dish cap as a plate. That’s why the cap itself was made to look presentable, using soft and clean tones like ivory, sky blue, and terracotta. The idea is that you set the freshly cooked food on the lid itself and then later just cover it with the glass bowl when it’s time to put it away. The next time you want to eat it, you don’t have to rearrange the food again to make it presentable. Simply take off the cover and dig in!

Roll takes the food container concept upside-down, literally, by making it usable, whether as a bowl with a round lid or a plate with a bowl cover. It definitely saves a bit of work and time and helps keep even leftovers looking scrumptious, something that you might have sorely missed if you’ve been living by yourself for a long time.

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This industrial-style chair has a surprise for nighttime book lovers

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Some experts and industry players expressed concern about the decline in paper media like books and magazines. The abundance of digital content and the devices that can access them seems to threaten the existence of these physical objects, though these aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. There are plenty of physical and psychological benefits to reading physical books, not to mention the social aspects of the experience, especially when parents and their kids are involved. Unlike with ebooks, however, reading paper books has to be done under specific conditions, particularly with the proper lighting to comfortably read the material. Reading in front of a desk might not feel comfortable, while reading in bed might not be that ergonomic, especially with just a bedside lamp. That is where this ultra-simplistic chair comes in, providing a comfy place to read a book, especially in the dark.

Designer: UGLY.DUCKLING

A chair, lounge, or couch might be the most comfortable place to read a book for pleasure. You’re less likely to fall asleep compared to when you’re lying in bed (though that’s definitely still possible), and it’s also more relaxing than sitting in front of a desk, especially if the furniture is often associated with work. The problem, however, is that proper lighting for reading can be a bit tricky with the way most seats are positioned in a room. The best lighting position would be over your head and maybe a little to your left, which is something that’s not easily achieved in a room where lighting from the ceiling or walls is fixed.

The Hidden Light chair takes care of that problem in the simplest way by integrating its own reading light. This way, wherever you place the chair, the light will always be there as well. But rather than having the built-in lamp always there even when you don’t need it yet, the chair wisely hides the feature and gets it out of the way when all you want to do is sit back and relax and maybe watch a bit of Netflix instead.

The top “bar” of the chair’s backrest can detach from the rest of the frame on one end and then swing around through a pivot on the other. This allows the lamp hidden on the detachable end to be positioned at any angle, depending on what is most comfortable for the reader. And if there’s enough light anyway, the lamp can be hidden and won’t stick out unnecessarily.

 

The design of the Hidden Light chair itself is on the bare and almost brutalist side. It’s basically just a frame made of bent metal pipes with some stretchable material connecting the two sides to form the actual seat. This makes maintenance and transport extremely easy, though it’s questionable whether it’s actually comfortable to sit on, let alone be stable and safe. Regardless, it’s a neat and simple idea of how to get a proper reading light whenever you sit down on your favorite chair to spend hours on that latest novel printed nicely on paper.

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This bench and coffee table is an interesting place for transient people and things

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Not all seats are meant to encourage people to lounge for hours, and not all tables are designed to be permanent homes for stationery or decorations. There is furniture that is meant to be a brief oasis of rest for a person on the move or a temporary holding ground for stuff in transit. Benches, stools, side tables, and even coffee tables are examples of such furniture with impermanent functions, providing a comfortable pit stop that doesn’t require a longer commitment of time and effort. Just because people and things often pass them by doesn’t mean they don’t need to be attractive and interesting, and this combination of a bench and a coffee table is one such curious twist that seems to contradict its very name.

Designer: Ricardo Sá

Compared to other pieces of furniture, seats and tables often convey a sense of rest and stillness. After all, you have to stop to sit down, and an object placed on top of a table stays still unless you move it. Compared to a lounge or a sofa, however, a bench also implies a sense of motion after a temporary pause, where someone sits for a while and then resumes their activity. Similarly, a coffee table is often a place for cups and books waiting for a brief period before being picked up again to be used.

Wait, then, is the perfect name for a multi-functional piece of furniture that embraces these passages of time. But while the word itself carries the meaning of stopping briefly, the design of the bench almost contradicts this identity. A horizontal slab of wood intersects a wave-like form that gives it a character of dynamism and an illusion of movement. It’s like it’s lying in wait, ready to jump into action at any given moment.

That dynamism is also present in how the furniture can be used. It takes very little to change the function of the piece; simply removing one or both cushions frees the surface to be used as table tops. You don’t even have to stick to one or the other mode since leaving one cushion creates a half-and-half that serves both purposes.

There are more permanent structures to hold objects, though they’re not exactly designed to keep them there forever. The bottom spaces can hold books, magazines, or even the unused cushions, while the middle cavern can be a spot to hide phones and remote controls. The hump in the middle could be a place for a cup, though its somewhat curved shape doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. Whichever way you combine the functions or whether your place it off to the side or in the middle of a room, Wait will be ready to give you and your stuff a place to catch your breath before heading off to your next adventure.

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This camping chair doubles as a carrying tool inspired by a traditional Korean jigae

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Single-purpose products have a particular appeal to them. They’re simple to use because they only have a single functionality, so there’s little to no room for misunderstandings or mistakes. These kinds of things can often afford to have more elaborate designs because designers can focus on things other than functionality that is inherently simple and fixed. At the same time, however, these products can also be a waste of space and material, especially when they can do a little more than what they’re designed for. Of course, these different functions still need to present a coherent theme, like this chair and carrying tool that is useful for outdoor activities, whether you’re sitting on it or not.

Designers: Sangeun Park, Minseo Kang, Junsang Park, Do hoon Kim

Given how outdoor activities have become trendy these days, it’s no surprise that there has also been a rise in interest surrounding outdoor equipment. From lamps to tools to grills to even portable power generators, more and more people have started to look into products that they can take with them for a road trip or weekend camping. When you’re packing for a trip or an outdoor activity, you often have even less space than you would at home. In cases like these, multi-functional products that save space and time are preferred, and a chair that does something when not in use is probably going to be a hot item for regular campers.

When it’s completely unfolded, the Chair – A looks like a typical foldable camping chair. It’s not going to be the most comfortable, of course, with a fabric seat and an absence of a backrest, but that’s to be expected from space-saving chairs like these. Unfortunately, even such a chair would become extra luggage you have to carry around since it won’t have any purpose when it’s folded up. This particular design concept, however, is anything but useless, and it can actually become a tool that helps you carry your luggage instead.

The Chair – A can be “half folded” into a form that almost resembles a “jigae” or a traditional Korean carrying tool. It is practically a frame that lets you load more things on your back without having to cram them into your backpack or have them dangling precariously from bags. This kind of tool has been used to easily transport loads of firewood, and its design hasn’t really changed at all in the past centuries. This chair, however, applies an A-frame design that makes the carrier look a bit more aesthetic while also providing more stability.

Of course, you shouldn’t be carrying more load than your back can support, but the Chair – A’s design, particularly its arms, does help shift the weight a bit to prevent strain and injury. And when you’re really done camping and carrying, it still folds completely flat so that it can be conveniently stored in cramped spaces. It’s not exactly a revolutionary design, and it even borrows ideas from tools that have existed for a long, long time. Still, even that slight change gives a camping chair another purpose even when you’re not sitting on it.

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This lamp concept, inspired by the Earth and the moon, provides two kinds of light

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Lamps come not just in many forms but also in different intensities and with different purposes. Some lamps are made to shine brightly in order to provide sufficient illumination, while others have a softer glow in order to set the ambiance of a room. Most of the time, these different functions are performed by different lamps, mostly because it’s difficult for the same design to serve the same purpose. Sure, you may be able to control the light’s intensity, but its direction and diffusion are entirely different things. This lamp concept, however, tries to prove that such a thing is possible, and it looks a bit to the heavens to find inspiration.

Designer: Nicola Pezzotti, Andrea Gallarini

A lamp that can provide both bright directed light and soft diffused illumination is going to be a winner for many people. Such a lamp would naturally save space and money, performing two functions in the space of one. It’s harder to pull off, though, given the different purposes they serve and the different requirements. It’s not impossible, though, especially with some creative and unconventional thinking, taking inspiration from unlikely sources.

As its name suggests, Orbis takes inspiration from the orbit of heavenly bodies, specifically that of the moon around the Earth. The cylindrical lamp holds a bulb standing as a pillar in the middle. A slider on top lets you direct where the bright light shines and whether it occludes part of the light or not. This is almost similar to how the moon travels across the night sky or how its different phases only show part or all of its face.

The moon’s light is also less harsh than the sun’s, and the Orbis lamp also provides that kind of lighting. A button at the top activates a ring of light on top, which has a softer glow and is perfect for a night or mood lamp. This way, a single lamp can provide two kinds of light for your room, letting you choose what to use for which purpose. Perhaps you want a more directed and brighter light while reading before bed and then switching to a gentler light when you finally want to sleep.

If not for the cord that gives power to this lamp, Orbis could be placed almost anywhere, whether on a desk or beside your bed. As far as structure goes, it isn’t exactly revolutionary, but its unusual design and mechanism successfully turn it into an interesting piece of decoration and lighting in any room.

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The screwdriver to rule them all comes in a shockingly compact body

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Life would be so much simpler if we all followed certain standards like paper sizes, date formats, or screw head shapes. While a good majority of furniture and electronics do use a small subset of screws available in the world, you never know when you’ll actually come across one that your two or three screwdrivers can’t handle. There are, of course, a variety of screwdriver sets or universal tools with interchangeable bits to cover almost all those, but all of them take up precious space in your toolbox or bag. You can only do so much to get a true universal screwdriver you can easily carry even inside your pocket without compromising on quality. You might be shocked, then, to see this multi-functional screwdriver that can fit in the palm of your hand, proving its right to be called the ScrewDriverKing™.

Designer: Chiseled Design

Click Here to Buy Now: $89 $199 ($110 off). Hurry, only 5/200 left!

The problem with screws is that there are just too many kinds that require not only different bits but sometimes even different lengths of screwdrivers. You might assume that everything can be handled by a conventional screwdriver with a long shank, but there are times when you need to get even closer for more precise movement. This kind of variety and having too many variables is what makes it difficult to have a single tool that handles them all in a truly portable package.

Just like a powerful monarch, that is no problem for the ScrewDriverKing, which manages to solve that and more using the most ingenious design possible. Yes, it still has all the heads you’ll need to cover any kind of screw out there, and, yes, it still has a long double-ended hex socket (1/4″ & 5/16″) when you need it. The difference is that all of these tools are crammed into a compact body that is barely 4 inches in length, small enough to fit in your hand or keep in your pocket. You no longer have to worry about carrying a pouch or box with you all the time.

The secret to this seemingly impossible feat isn’t just the modularity of the ScrewDriverKing, but also in how all the bits and pieces fit inside the handle. Flip the shank around, and it stores inside the driver’s hollow body. All the screw bits, on the other hand, slide into the driver’s handle. The handle is ergonomically designed with a seamless anti-slip comfort that enables you to adeptly use all of the screw-bits as grip leverage. It facilitates an air circulation process through the tool grooves, allowing the air to pass through on both ends and keeping both the tool and hand dry for a long period of time. Everything you need is in one place, so you don’t have to worry about leaving some bits behind.

File Tool – Can be used to smooth sharp edges for those of us looking for perfection.

Box Cutter – Capable of opening your packages.

Circular Bubble Level – This allows you to center the position of the screwdriver.

Rulers – Implemented two rulers in both inches and metric.

The tool, however, isn’t just the King of all screwdrivers. It’s also the king of multi-tools. Despite its small size, it actually has multiple functions, including a filing tool on the double-ended hex socket that can hold both 1/4″ and 5/16″ screws bits, rulers in both imperial & metric units, and 27 different size screw-bits that’ll adapt to any project you might have. There is even a magnetic cap that serves as a bubble leveler that can precisely measure both horizontal and vertical surfaces. As a bonus, that cap has 9 different sizes of spoke-wrench, including a DT Swiss Tricon wheel (T20). Even with all these powerful features, the ScrewDriverKing is also carefully designed to be safe around children. The bits will not come off easily thanks to a magnetic slide-lock design, but adults can open it without trouble using a thumbs-up gesture.

The ScrewDriverKing is almost like a puzzle where every part has some function to be discovered. The parts can be used as storage but also as a standalone tool. True to its moniker, the tool’s gold color gives it a sense of royalty, and it’s complemented by that multi-functional cap that’s shaped like a crown. Given the royal treatment you’d be getting, the $89 Super Early Bird price tag definitely feels like it was made with commoners in mind. With this 40+ Tools-in-one screwdriver, you’ll definitely feel like the king of everyday repairs and everything else where there’s a loose screw waiting to be conquered.

Click Here to Buy Now: $89 $199 ($110 off). Hurry, only 4/199 left!

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This odd metal shelf tries to preserve your work-life balance

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The boundaries between work and personal life have been blurring in the past few years, and recent work-from-home arrangements have only muddled the lines even further. As many people learned the hard way, it takes a good amount of mental discipline to separate the two when they’re working at home, but it’s not exactly impossible. Having a separate home office is ideal but isn’t always an option for those with limited space. In such cases, furniture can come to the rescue, creating a physical and visual boundary between different parts of your life. That’s exactly the kind of effect that this shelf is aiming for, creating a figurative and literal separation between work and rest, especially for those that tend to have their desks beside their bed.

Designer: Jeong Hyuk Kim

If you look at it head-on, this shelf looks almost stereotypical, with box-like spaces for items like books and a top surface for putting decorative items like plants and vases. Once you start viewing it from a different angle, though, you’ll immediately see how it’s not your conventional shelf, especially in the way its body seems to snake upward, creating another space on its back.

The Criteria shelf concept is actually a blending of two different types of shelves for different parts of the day. As mentioned, one is a typical shelf to store books, stationery, desk accessories, decor, and other items you might need for work. The opposite side of this shelf, however, also has a shelf but with more limited space. It also has lighting that would be more useful at night.

This is the “rest” part of Criteria’s functionality. While one side is designed for productivity, the other is designed as a temporary landing area for transit items like phones, books, watches, or glasses. In other words, it functions as a bedside night shelf, though its height might not be ideal for reaching out at night. The idea is to have a single piece of furniture serve two functions, depending on which side you’re facing. That only works, however, if both “faces” of the shelf are within arm’s reach in the first place.

The skeleton of the shelf is made from a single sheet of metal bent to achieve this crooked shape. The central column and the shelves themselves are attached through gaps in the body. To prevent the metal edges from injuring people, they are bent to curve downward, creating a bit of safety. The shelf has a built-in power socket and USB ports for charging devices and powering the night lamp, and the gap between the spine and the shelf’s frame creates a path for the power cable to pass through.

The Criteria shelf concept presents a rather interesting solution to the problem of keeping a work-life balance at home. Rather than having a single shelf where work and personal items mix indiscriminately, it has two distinct areas for work and for rest. It’s also most metaphorical in how it shows two sides of the same shelf as if reminding people that, at the end of the day, these separate sides are still part of the same person.

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Mikono modular table light has an innovative design to lets you carry it around

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We all need light in our lives, from the pendant lamps that light up spaces to the desk lamps that let us study or work in dark environments. Of course, we don’t always need kinds of lighting fixtures all the time, and it would probably be a financial and material waste if we bought all sorts of lamps but end up not using them often. For these circumstances, a lamp that can serve different functions in different circumstances would be ideal. Such a multi-functional accessory doesn’t need to be complicated or sophisticated, as shown by this rechargeable and modular table lamp that can split into two when you need to carry your light around with you.

Designer: Moritz Putzier

At first glance, Mikono almost looks like an overgrown flashlight, one that has been propped up on its handle to precariously stand on a flat surface. Unlike a flashlight, however, the light isn’t directed towards a single point only and rather emanates from all sides of the conical part of the lamp. Compared to a stereotypical table lamp, the cone’s orientation is inverted, with its wider end pointing upward instead of its narrow point. It’s definitely an unconventional design, but only because it’s an unconventional lamp as well.

The real lamp is actually just the cone itself, and the base is the Mikono’s wireless charging base. Two pogo pins serve as a conduit between the lamp and the charger, which could raise some concerns about properly positioning the lamp so that those pins align. From the absence of cables, the base presumably carries its own battery and doesn’t have to be plugged into a wall socket to charge the lamp.

The lamp itself is also simple and minimal in its design. The majority of the cone uses a translucent material that diffuses the light that passes through it, but the tip of the cone is made from a different metallic material that houses the electronics. There’s a loop strap at that point as well, and this strap goes into the empty chamber inside the cylindrical charging base. The black circle at the top (or bottom) of the lamp is the on and off switch, which also functions as a four-level dimmer for the light’s intensity.

The idea for the Mikono is that it’s a table lamp most of the time but can easily be a handheld lamp when you need it. You simply separate the two parts and carry the lamp using the strap. Alternatively, you can also hang the lamp off some hook, turning it into a makeshift pendant lamp. This makes Mikono useful not just indoors but especially outdoors, where it can serve as your all-in-one light source for camping and exploring.

One rather interesting detail about the lamp is that it is designed for longevity right from the start. Unlike typical rechargeable lights, Mikono is designed in a way that makes it easy to replace the battery when it becomes defective or dies out. That might not be the same for the five high-power LEDs that light up the lamp, though, which should probably be the next iteration of this modular lamp’s design.

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Blazo brings a rechargeable desk fan and desk lamp in the space of one

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We’d all love to have as much space as we need, but the reality is that physical space will always be limited. We might have a large desk or shelf, for example, to fit all our stationery and stuff, but that also means less floor space for other things. Many people try to be smart by buying multi-functional products or modular furniture that can be arranged and used as needed. Sometimes, the combinations make sense, but other times you can also be left scratching your head. This desk fan, for example, looks almost ordinary, that is until you flip the switch on to shed some light on matters, literally.

Designer: Pratik Prabhakar Wandhare

Almost everyone needs a kind of lamp at some point. Some like a directional light on their desk, while others might prefer lamps that hang from a higher angle. Admittedly, not everyone needs an electric fan, especially in countries where it’s almost always cold most of the year or where people depend on air conditioning most of the time. Then again, with the recent abnormal heat waves across many countries, having a fan ready might not be such a bad idea.

That is perhaps part of the inspiration behind the Blazo appliance concept. At first glance, it looks like an electric fan attached to a camera gimbal. The design for this unconventional arm and stand was apparently an educational globe. The Blazo’s fan can swivel up and down 360 degrees, and it can also rotate 360 degrees so that no direction is left unreached. That does mean that the lamp can also point in the same direction, though you’ll probably want to keep the fan steady in that case unless you were aiming for a makeshift light show.

The LED light has different brightness levels so that you can use the same lamp as a desk lamp, a night lamp, or anything in between. Blazo runs on a rechargeable battery, and using the lamp alone can make it last for 8 hours. Both fan and lamp working together would cut that time down to just three or four hours, though the design doesn’t mention how long the fan would last on its own.

Blazo is flexible not only in direction and purpose but also in its position. Although the most basic configuration would have it standing on a desk, it can also be mounted on a wall if you prefer an overhead spotlight of sorts. The stand is telescopic, so it can be adjusted to your preferred height, though it doesn’t seem to get high enough for a conventional stand fan.

While the multi-functional design does look refined and useful, it does raise the question of who’d need to have an electric fan and lamp at the same time. Most people will probably just one function or another at a time and not simultaneously, since having a fan on a desk so close to your face can actually be a bit uncomfortable. Still, there could be other instances where a ceiling fan with a spotlight or a night lamp with a fan could warrant such a space-saving design, but one might have to stretch the imagination a bit to make a solid case for it.

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