Originally, this product was conceived as a showcase for an exhibitor at the Paris Air Show held at Salon du Bourget. Rather than disposing the shelf once the show finished, which is sadly often the case, this product was to be transferred and reused at the client’s Paris boutique. Therefore the main criteria for this shelf, during design and development, was how to make a flexible system; mounting, dismounting, adjusting, transporting, etc.

We realized that simplicity, as is often the case, is the best method of ensuring a flexible system. As so, the final composition of the product is simply composed of two planes; a simple steel ladder in the vertical and wooden planks in the horizontal. We named the product “échelle” from the French word for ladder or scale. The name simply represents the principal character of the shelf; the scale, especially the height, of this product is adjustable by rotating the changing composition of each ladder.

The steel ladder is finished with a coat of black paint, whilst the wooden plank is painted white to express the strong contrast between the two materials. There are small holes on the rungs of the ladder in order to secure the planks to the metal with screws. This small, structural detail is what allows the ladders to be rotated flexibly for any space.

Photography : Ikuo Yamashita
Design by ARCHIEE (Yusuke KINOSHITA and Daisuke SEKINE)