India Art n Design: Bookshelf with an Attitude!

India Art n Design: Bookshelf with an Attitude!: By Priyanka Vikash 

Photography: Kabilan S & Amit Khanna.; courtesy AKDA

IAnD discovers how imagination meets sustainability

Bookshelf with an Attitude!

By Priyanka Vikash

Photography: Kabilan S & Amit Khanna.; courtesy AKDA

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IAnD discovers how imagination meets sustainability in simple design re-use giving rise to an innovative exhibition design component; courtesy Amit Khanna Design Associates, New Delhi.

An invitee participation in an exhibition, with an opportunity to showcase the firm’s prowess is something that every designer looks forward to. So one is accustomed to seeing large panels of images and pop-ups that speak of the philosophy and working of the design/architecture firm.  

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At the recently (Feb’13) held DesignxDesign’s 20 under 35 exhibition at Delhi, Amit Khanna Design Associates came up with a simple but intriguing twist to the regular exhibition panel. They decided to make their participation tangible via a spatial intervention instead of just another wall-mounted flat panel.

Bearing in mind the firm’s staunch and acclaimed philosophy of making regional specificity and sustainability intrinsic to the product and the design process, and its constant engagement with ‘suitable materiality and innovation, irrespective of appearance’, the firm decided to use their cherished first piece of office furniture – a bookshelf – as the innovative mouthpiece of all that they stand for.

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“The focus at AKDA is to deliver innovation that uplifts our environment, instead of allowing our built environment to be a mish-mash of private agendas,” explains Amit. “The bookshelf was repurposed for the exhibit staying true to our sustainable attitude, and secondly, the modular system design helps to demonstrate our design ethos.”

With just 9 sq. ft. allotted to the exhibition display, AKDA transformed the bookshelf from its regular avatar into one with multiple interventions that resulted in an outer frame and inner partitions, making it easy to assemble and dismantle. Freestanding and placed in a well-lit area of the exhibition space, the modular bookshelf successfully engaged viewers, who could walk around it. The idea here was to let the exhibit grab the spotlight and it did.

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A simple exercise of innovative thought and design application that served to take away the old chore of an exhibition installation that would become redundant in the future; and instead replace it with an exhibit ‘that would go back to use'. The bookshelf now wears an attitude!