AMALGAM was asked to imagine a poetic built-in for a Librarian's Upper East Side apartment. The piece hangs from the ceiling from steel rods providing wine storage in the kitchen, book shelves in the living room and a home office. The underside of the shelves are milled with one of the client's favorite poems.

In order to create a versatile system that both fit into and transformed its environment we used high quality materials and designed simple straight forward connections and let them speak for themselves. The system hangs from the ceiling over the existing countertop where it provides wine storage on the kitchen side. The middle consists of book shelves with taller open areas for larger books, art objects and the computer monitor. The desk area widens to create an ergonomic home office.
We then worked with Brooklyn based craftsmen to bring the design to life. The mill worker who cut, notched and engraved each of the shelves employed a mix of computer controlled milling and hand finishing, while the steel fabricator took a break from making custom motorcycles to hammer out the supports.

High grade, formaldehyde-free birch veneer plywood with an oil finish was used as it provided a good match with the existing cabinetry. The edges and notches were left unfinished to maintain an honest expression of the material.
Blackened steel angles, rods and plate make up the support system that hangs from the ceiling and stainless steel pins are used under the shelves to fix them in place.