Platinum Furniture Design · 2021
Shelter Desk
- A' Design Award 2021 Platinum Winner in Furniture Design
- Awarded April 15, 2021
- CLIENT: Joao Teixeira Design Studio
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 2,412,952
- Verification code 95B6330EC9 · Verify this award
About Shelter Desk
Shelter is a wooden desk designed for home office use. The desk supports productivity through better organization, with easy access to storage and hidden cable management that guides cables from a rear opening to the front drawers. Rounded corner drawers give the desk a distinct appearance, and all elements are aligned to form one continuous shape. The desk is made mainly of natural wood, with two metal hinges and a brass finish at the back. Production combines traditional techniques with CNC machining. The desk measures 1480 by 800 by 760 millimeters.
João Teixeira's Shelter Desk emerges from a distinguished lineage of thoughtfully conceived workspace furniture that prioritizes both functional necessity and emotional resonance within contemporary domestic environments. The design demonstrates sophisticated engagement with the Scandinavian modern tradition while advancing distinctly personal formal propositions, particularly evident in the protective screen element that transforms a conventional writing surface into an intimate sanctuary for focused thought. Technical accomplishment manifests throughout the construction, from the precise joinery connecting splayed legs to the undercarriage frame, through the seamless integration of concealed storage drawers that preserve the design's clean horizontal emphasis. The chromatic strategy employs graduated wood tones moving from pale to dark as the eye travels upward and backward, creating a subtle hierarchy that guides attention toward the workspace proper while the lighter structural elements seem to dematerialize into supporting gesture. Material selection celebrates the inherent beauty of wood grain while contemporary manufacturing precision ensures the crisp geometric relationships essential to the design's visual success. The angled screen element serves multiple functions simultaneously: it shields the work surface from ambient distraction, conceals cables and technological necessities from view, and creates psychological enclosure that transforms any room corner into a dedicated workspace. This multivalent approach to furniture design reflects broader contemporary movements toward flexible domestic environments where single pieces must perform both practically and atmospherically. The Shelter Desk invites contemplation of how physical objects might nurture focused attention in an era of perpetual distraction, suggesting that thoughtful design intervention can cultivate conditions for creative thought.
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- The design language finds its most unique feature in the rounded corner drawers giving the desks a differentiating aspect and stylish look. Also, all elements were designed to align seamlessly between each other allowing for an overall singular design.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- 1480 mm x 800 mm x 760 mm
- Tags
- Desk, Wood, Wooden Desk, Desk Design, Wood Design, Furniture, Furniture Design
- Production Technology
- Desk production is based on traditional techniques, using common machinery to achieve precision like cnc and others. The desk is made using just two metallic hinges and a brass finish at the back as hardware as for the rest being natural wood. The rounded drawers are made using seams between joints in order to make the product more feasible and therefore affordable.
- Design Challenge
- The most challenging aspect, and also the most fun as in many other designs, was the process of fine tuning some manufacturing details finding a balance between feasibility, aesthetics and function.
- Project Duration
- The project started in March 2020 in Porto and finished March 2021 in Porto.
- Operation Flow
- While developing Shelter desk the goal was to keep its usability as simple as its looks. For instance, the possibility to pass cables trough the back access to the front drawers seamlessly and in a hidden way is a clear aspect of performing better than most common desks in the market. The interaction between product and user is self explanatory as for the access for each of the storages the design approach clearly indicates where and how to open.
- Research
- Motivated by lockdown, Shelter arises as a natural impulse to design something that would fit most home offices environments enhancing their productivity. Since we had to adapt to new normal overnight there was a big demand on this kind of solutions, especially when witnessing a big wave of change as companies were letting employees to work from home. The insight was to design a desk oriented towards the mental health fluctuation during the pandemic, providing serenity, hence the name Shelter.
- Inspiration
- While designing the Shelter desk our main inspiration was to develop something focused on both function and aesthetics. We wanted to come up with a solution that could improve the users productivity by enhancing his organization layouts through useful features like clean cable management and easy storage access.
Colors of Shelter Desk
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