Minimalist furniture is the trend these days, especially if they come as flat-packed merchandise from the likes of IKEA. While there is something refreshing about clean and simple surfaces, some take issue with how some of these also simply lack personality, charm, or impact. That’s not always true, of course, and how appealing a minimalist design might be is definitely a bit subjective. There are ways to give a piece of furniture a bit more character without going overboard with extraneous embellishments. This peculiar desk, for example, definitely makes an impact with its pipe-filled body, almost creating a visual metaphor for how desk designs could help or impede your productivity, a.k.a. your flow.
Designer: Jing-Cyuan Tang
A row of pipes is probably the last thing you’d want to use as a work desk. Never mind the image of working on top of a radiator; the cylindrical bars of the pipes would theoretically mean not being able to write legibly or draw straight lines. Of course, wedging a flat wooden board in the middle of those pipes easily fixes that problem, and what you get is a desk that’s not only functional but will also make you the talk of the town.
Metal pipes have always been associated with an industrial aesthetic, leaving no ambiguity to their utilitarian purposes. Stacking these many and creating a whole piece of furniture from them definitely helps send that message across. Admittedly, it’s a style that’s not going to appeal to everyone, and some might even feel uncomfortable looking at the ribbed surfaces everywhere. No one will deny, however, that it makes for a very interesting design.
It would have been trivial to just bend the pipes in such a way to create legs and a desktop, but Work Flow balances both form and function in a way that’s just as interesting as its appearance. Of of the pipes bend away from the others, creating nooks and slots to hold bags, books, and other items. There are also longer “deviations” that serve as shelves for computer peripherals or even a space for a furry friend.
Admittedly, such a desk design would have plenty of drawbacks, particularly when keeping it clean and tidy. The grooves in between pipes would be the perfect place to gather dust and lose small items, so it might be an impractical design for some households in some locales. Then again, those same curves could be utilized to hold thin items or be the foundations to stick other objects into, creating a modular system by accident.
