díez+díez diseño & MiSCeL·LàNia

The collaboration between the design studio in Madrid, diez+diez diseño, specialized in product development, and the editor firm DINÀMICA COMPLEMENTS, S.L, with its trademark “MiSCeL·LàNia”, of Barcelona, specialized in the production of home and contract accessories, has become somewhat like a perfect aerial bridge, as much in its creative side as in  production.

This relationship goes on after ten years, always with development of different pieces for the domestic area, without neglecting the possibilities for the contract field, where functionality and simplicity of the designs have always had priority upon any other consideration.

The first product arised from this relationship was the VIRTUAL bookcase: we can conceive it as a true homage towards the BOOK, converting the heavy, unsteady and inaccessible column of volumes which invade tables, floors and different corners of our houses, studios or offices into a light image of magical and poetic character that gives a metaphorical idea of human knowledge accumulation throughout the centuries.

VIRTUAL becomes so not a simple minimalist design, but a real essential piece, removed from fashion or tendencies, achieving to transform a topical –although universal- image into another quite actualized one linked to concepts such as lightness or virtuality.

Its reduced dimensions makes in fact the contents be bigger than the container, hiding it completely to sight. Its versatility for composition, be on columns, isolated, in an aleatory position, etc., this bookcase can adapt itself to those missed spaces left by the traditional ones. It is precisely its constructive simplicity what allows to VIRTUAL to compete in excellent conditions of price with other similar models which have lately appeared in the market.

In the same way, its “esthetical lack”, in contrast with its deep functional character, allows its integration in very different decorations or spaces, since it is the books who are the formal elements of this design.

To the original model of this bookcase, shaped as a column, which previously had been introduced and commercialized by their own creators –they were finalists of the Premios Delta 2001-, two new versions are now added, one slant and other one curved, which allow to get more expressive and impact compositions.

Further on we developed the wall shelf LIGERA, which although not reaching  the invisibility of the previous design, it shows also one of the characteristics of the designers’ work, their essentiality; this shelf becomes unnoticed letting the protagonism to the therein contained or shown, be it in a domestic room or in other spaces, such as in shops or in showrooms. This essentiality is evident in its constructive process, since a simple laser cut of metallic plate and a later right bending process at the rear part of the shelf and getting curved the side bands, without any need of welding or adding whatever.

To both models developed initially,  LIGERA versions Simple and Double, it’s been added recently a Mini version destinated in a more specific way to contain  any kind of audiovisual media support (CD and DVD boxes, BlueRays, etc.)

Next product from this studio MISCeL • LaNia incorporated into its catalog was the BAXTER support, previously under the name of VERSATILE, edited by its own creators, also having been selected in  Delta Awards in 1999.

BAXTER is defined as a piece of contemporary furniture which emerged from a radical conception that is inserted in an innovative way in any residential area. Takes its name from the helpful protagonist from “The Apartment” by Billy Wilder, played by great Jack Lemmon.

BAXTER is presented as a support of minimum dimensions that works as a reference point or temporary storage of all those intermediary elements for our relationship with the object system that surrounds us, between  the outside world as much as with the domestic and domotic most inmediate space, everything from our own place of rest, wait, or work, in there has a place from any  remote control that we usually need in our relationship with the world, to any present and future support of books, magazines, newspapers etc., any agenda, mobile phone, key, video box, CDs, DVDs, glasses and even an object of an uncertain future as it is a pack of cigarettes.

BAXTER could be defined as a real chest of drawers without dravers, where the content, as in the VIRTUAL bookcase, exceeds the limits of the continent.

To the first version of Baxter, the standing one, it’s been added recently  both a desktop version as a wall one,  also we’re currently planning the introduction of new versions, like the bottle holder one, which continue covering the needs under the same premises that VERSATIL was already fulfilling in its beginnings, that means maximum functionality with minimal space occupation.

The latest achievement of this collaboration is the rack TEMPO; this object arises from the analysis of different formalizations that time adopts according to the material supports that we use to quantify and visualize it, from the finding that circular movement is the one that better reflects the cyclical events over time, not forgetting that time also has a linear component of progress. What we did was to combine these two components, circular and linear, an element that finds in the spiral or in the helicoid its definitory geometric shape.

TEMPO becomes this way a graphic manifestation of the passing of months across the clothing and accessories that takes place on it throughout the different seasons.

This is the result, for the time being, of a fertile dialogue between a small publisher that in 35 years of  existence has always bet on design as one of the fundamental and intrinsic values of their catalog, full of serene, balanced and useful pieces, and a design studio that always tried for its creations the same balance as an identity sign, the key to this relationship must be searched  in the renunciation from both parts to use the design concept in its most mediatic way, just  to find on  it a work and communication tool that enables díez+díez diseño’s creativity together with the productive and business MiSCeL·LàNia capacities,  placed to serve the true and fundamental target of their work together, the user.