INNOVATION - DISH DRAINING CLOSET : SPACE SAVER EVERY HOME SHOULD HAVE (I Have ShelvesThat Do The Same Thing)

Dish Draining Closet: Space Saver Every Home Should Have

 Innovation often spreads like wildfire – it is a wonder, really, that this 50-year-old design idea has not fully dowsed the flames of frustration in kitchens around the world. Instead of dedicating surface or sink area to drying dishes, it makes shelves serve a secondary purpose and lets you skip a step entirely.

 

 

Dish Draining Closet: Space Saver Every Home Should Have

Innovation often spreads like wildfire – it is a wonder, really, that this 50-year-old design idea has not fully dowsed the flames of frustration in kitchens around the world. Instead of dedicating surface or sink area to drying dishes, it makes shelves serve a secondary purpose and lets you skip a step entirely.

Still found mainly in Northern Europe, the idea is simple: dishes are placed into a bottomless cupboard where each shelf drains down to the next level, and ultimately to waiting sinks and drains below. The effect? a marked decrease in the 30 thousand of hours spent by Finnish housewives doing dishes daily.

 Plastic-coated steel wire, of the kind usually found in baskets sitting inside or alongside sinks, frames each shelving layer rather than an impermeable surface, though other variants exist as well (both covered and uncovered).

 We are all familiar with drying mats, collapsible wood, plastic or metal dish racks and other solutions, but even hanging dish drainers exist on the shelves of stores like IKEA, but few let one bypass the interstitial step of drying then putting away dishes.

 Unlike many non-appliance amenities, this (loosely translated) ‘dish drying closet’ design and many subsequent variations can be traced back to a single inventor: Maiju Gebhard, who created it as part of the Finnish Association for Work Efficiency in the mid-1940s. Since then, though, it remains an elusive fixture in many modern kitchens outside its home continent.

INNOVATION / LIVING - BICKBOX - MODULAR BOX-SHELF SYSTEM

BrickBox: Modular Box-Shelf System for Moving & Storage

This design will not wow you with its unusual shapes, unique materials or uncanny colors. Their design strength lies in durable, high-quality woods that will not bend or break under heavy weight, and the myriad useful ways a few simple pieces can be assembled.

Each unit is designed to stack in an alternating, brick-like fashion. This is quite intentional, providing additional structural rigidity while also creating various interior volume sizes and allowing complete systems to wrap corners.

Individual Brick Boxes can be reversed so as to display books or other items on one side or the other, correspondingly adding white space to the composition of the other.

Each box can be broken back down, packing flat for extra portability (if not being used to transport books). Their only hint of decor comes via the light wooden edges, adding smaller detail to the larger white-painted surfaces.

Finally, each set of boxes can also be firmly interlocked for more permanent shelf storage, and/or raised up on casters and wheeled around a room. Currently, the the BrickBox is only for sale in Europe – and not entirely cheap, but nor is it cheaply made.

Not shown, but suggested: other pieces of furniture could be constructed out of these as well (tables, chairs or benches, for instance) given their load-bearing capacity.