Pile of Suitcases wardrobe

I love this student design-project: a wardrobe made out of a pile of suitcases:

Now showing as part of Dutch Design Week, the graduate show at Design Academy Eindhoven includes Maarten De Ceulaer’s A Pile of Suitcases. Designer de Ceulaer graduated in 2008, and already his Pile of Suitcases is garnering lots of attention.

While the project seems simple enough–a wardrobe made from a grouping of suitcases–it evinces de Ceulaer’s peculiar philosophy of combining the poetic with the practical: “I try to base my designs on a strong, simple and pure concept… to question what I see around me, and translate that in an object. I think poetry, humour and communication of ideas are very important aspects of my designs, but at the same time I want to make useful and functional objects with that way of thinking.” A Pile of Suitcases wardrobe comes with “well-measured compartments” and “steel profiles [that] keep the pile firmly together.” In its construction, the piece responds to the very real needs of its user.

A Pile of Suitcases (via Cribcandy)

• [Cloudform]

  Reminiscent of Droog’s “You Can’t Lay Down Your Memory” from 1991–nice idea but agree it would be more interesting if each piece was more usable as a modern, ready-to-get-ripped-up-and-shaken-about-in-mechanical-conveyances suitcase.

  http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/collection/database/?irn=365248

• [mjbarbarino]

  It seems to be a variation of the Japanese tansu … nice, but not that original.

• [ehuelga]

  Reminded me of Droog also: http://www.droog.com/products/furniture—objects/chest-of-drawers/

• [Anonymous]

  I’d like to refer you to two sites that have had me drooling. I travel a lot, but can’t afford these great items:

  http://www.tumi.com/townhouse/wardrobe-trunk/

  Just add wheels:

  http://starbay.net/#http%3A//starbay.net/fr/bedroom.html

  I believe Vuitton still makes trunks, but I’ve been unable to find online.

• [dotell]

  I’d like to refer you to a site that has me drooling:

  http://www.tumi.com/townhouse/wardrobe-trunk/

  I’m pretty sure Vuitton still makes trunks, but I’ve not found it on the web

• [Brash Lion]

  I’m pretty proud of this:

  http://www.flickr.com/photos/brashlion/2421420274/in/dateposted/

  I use old suitcases for bookshelves!

• [Anonymous]

  Sigh…

  I wish my fellow countrymen would learn to produce something beautiful for a change.

  99% of Dutch design tends to follow a philosophy that can be summed up in one sentence: “Hey kids, let’s do something crazy!”

  So you get pieces that have their little joke:

  A wardrobe… MADE OF SUITCASES!
  A chair… PAINTED LIKE A COW!

  which is fun for twenty seconds (about the time it took to think up the original idea), and then the fun wears off and you’re left with an impractical ugly piece of furniture.

  It’s the Bigmouth Billy Bass school of design.

• [DragonVPM]

  It’s a neat concept but it seems like at least one of those suitcases should be designed to be detach from the unit and be usable as a real suitcase. That would add a nice dimension of utility for a necessary item that often isn’t used that much by most people.

• [Jacquilynne]

  Is it just me or do none of the separate pieces of that wardrobe look anything like a suitcase? 2 of them are sort of the right dimensions, but the rest are just rounded edged boxes of whatever random shape the designer decided to use.

  I don’t hate it as a piece of furniture (though that shoe box at the bottom seems to have a large amount of wasted space), but if I saw it without being told it was supposed to be suitcases, I’d certainly never imagine that was the inspiration.

• [Jerril]

  #2: You obviously aren’t familiar with suitcases in their many many unfasionable forms :D.

  These seem to be particularly old fashioned – I’ve only seen suitcases like these in old BBC dramas depicting WWII. I’m not sure if they’re still “in vogue” in Europe.