Silver Furniture · 2026
Flowerblock Shelf
- Silver A' Design Award 2026 in Furniture
- CLIENT: Chinen Mizuki
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 17,412
- Verification code 89481E3090 · Verify this award
Colors
About Flowerblock Shelf
Flowerblock is a shelf designed to serve as both storage furniture and a room divider. The design is inspired by flower blocks, concrete units with geometric openwork patterns used in Okinawan architecture, which filter strong sunlight while letting air pass. Gaps between the boxes give the shelf a light and open appearance. Stainless steel rods connect the boxes for stability, solid white ash supports the load-bearing points, and plywood reduces the overall weight. The shelf has no back panel, so it can be placed against a wall or in the centre of a room.
About the Silver A' Design Award
Flowerblock Shelf is a Silver A' Design Award winner, an extraordinarily prestigious recognition granted to top-of-the-line, gorgeous, and impressive designs. Silver winners are tremendously brilliant and exceedingly creative works that illustrate the outstanding expertise, talent, and acuity of their designers. Flowerblock Shelf is expected to be a wonderful, showpiece work that is remarkably professional and profoundly innovative. This Silver A' Design Award-winning design is a highly notable, admired invention that benefits and advances the boundaries of art, science, design, and technology. Flowerblock Shelf is a vastly envied creation that evokes desires, introduces positive feelings, and sparks amazement and wonderment.
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- This shelf deliberately leaves space between boxes, creating an overall cool and light impression. Light and air pass through the gaps, reducing visual pressure and creating a pleasant sense of openness in the space. Its open, airy presence, reminiscent of Okinawa's climate, evokes a refreshing feel even in hot seasons, bringing a gentle rhythm to the room it occupies. It is a design that considers not only functionality but also visual coolness.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- 2000mm x 400mm x 1020mm
- Tags
- Shelf, Design, Furniture, Furniture design,
- Production Technology
- Stainless steel rods connect the boxes, ensuring durability and stability. The surfaces where these rods are inserted utilize solid white ash wood for its superior strength, providing robust support to load-bearing areas. Meanwhile, plywood is used for other sections to achieve overall weight reduction.
- Design Challenge
- To make the structure viable, we went through numerous trials and errors. Ensuring sufficient strength and stability proved particularly challenging. However, increasing strength inevitably added weight, so we also struggled to balance robustness with lightness.
- Research
- We conducted a durability test to verify how much weight the two stainless steel rods can withstand.
- Inspiration
- This shelf was designed inspired by Flower Blocks widely used in the architecture of my hometown, Okinawa. Flower Blocks are concrete blocks featuring geometric openwork patterns. They possess the characteristic of blocking strong sunlight while allowing pleasant breezes to pass through, combining practicality and decorative appeal. I focused on this functional beauty and incorporated a structure conscious of pathways for light and wind into the shelf's design.
- Project Duration
- The project commenced in Okinawa in April 2025.
- Operation Flow
- This shelving unit is intentionally designed without a back panel, allowing it to serve not only as storage furniture but also as a partition that gently divides a room. By not completely blocking sightlines or light, it maintains an open feel while enabling zoning according to purpose. Another key feature is its flexibility in placement it can be installed not only against walls but also in the center of a room or near windows. It adapts flexibly to changes in lifestyle and spatial usage.
