At the [Re]Design 06 exhibition in London, the hip British design team ww.modcons explore the issue of disposability with their subtly ironic Shelves for Life. The artfully assembled slats of wood begin their existence dutifully propping up books and knick-knacks, but when their time is up, instead of getting kicked to the curb, these shelves convert into a coffin!
If you tend to get precious about throwing away items you’ve grown attached to, Shelves for Life might be just your style. The designers’ wry commentary on the disposability of everyday objects is well-tucked into an inarguably beautiful piece of furniture.
Shelves for Life is just one of the many intriguing design items we found on display at [RE]Design – currently on at the Truman brewery on Brick Lane in London. Stay tuned for a report back later today on the rest of the show.
Are you kidding me!! If a person has an insurance policy, why would you want this instead of something nice! The deceased can’t take the insurance money with them so why not give them a decent burial? I think this is a very cheap looking way to bury someone and who would want to look at these shelves everyday in their home???? My husband laughed when he saw the pics & is still laughing. Plywood covered with oak veneer….give me a break!
Where can you get order one of these from????
Even in life we are in the midst of death. As clergy and daily faced with the tragedy of helping families deal with the details left by people who lived in constant denial of their own mortality I think this is a gentle, whimsical way for people to engage with the fact that none of us get out of this world alive. Our ancestors were much more honest about keeping mortality in view. The memento mori was a part of the fabric of society and people’s lives. Even Roman Emperors, as they rode victorious through the streets, would have a slave behind them whispering “memento mori”. Perhaps if we all kept our own death in front of us we would be less willing to tolerate what hastens that for ourselves and for others as well!
P.S. I think it looks great as furniture and just fine as a biodegradable corpse keeper!
I gleefully hope they sell as many as those who work for the company that designed them.
It is a very good idea and William Warrens bookshelve may even reach a larger public than my own design which was mainly designed for starting up a discussion about death as a part of life.
[...] pronto, macuerdo que también he incluido en esa lista de nisetocurra la estantería para la vida Shelves for Life. No niego que sea megaútil, que pa cuando te mueras ya no te hará falta más y podrás usarla de [...]
Im training to be a counsellor and also doing a bereavement course and i said to everyone that i wanted a bookshelve that could turn into a coffin and they were cracking up! i reckon its great and I WANT ONE!!!
i have to ask. why would you care what ur buried in? ur dead!
dual purpose items are cool
but why a coffin/bookshelf?!?!?
Coffin/bookshelf? good idea, but do you really want to be buried in a coffin that.. poorly built?
i think the human brain can think of a little better dual-purpose, everyday items.
Can I get this at IKEA?
hahaha…I’m gonna send this to my friend who is a mortician…He’ll LOVE it!!!
Thats a crappy coffin i’d hate to be buried in that. nice bookshelf tho.
Everything we own should have dual purposes… a bookshelf/coffin, a coffeemaker/transfusion device, a remote control that cuts your hair…the list is endless. But just for kicks, why don’t we use our innovative brains to solve real problems like disease and hunger? But yeah the bookshelf is cool though…
i love it. we’re always reminded that we’re going to die. theres no way that we cant be.
and i think that if we’re going to waste wood on a bookshelf thats just going to end up in the trash heap once were done with it, well.. we shouldnt let it go to waste
:] i want one.
personaly i think its a stupid idea, no one wants to be reminded there gonna die, much less, see it everymoring, hey i want a book, and oh yeah, im gonna be dead in that thing one day
When your books are good and tired, or you’re ready to move. Into the coffin they go!
[...] A bookshelf that turns into a coffin for when you’re, um, done with the bookshelf. Sort of a cool idea — reading books as a metaphor for death? [...]
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