top of page

BOOKCASE

For my Computer Aided Design course, we were asked to draw inspiration from furniture at BlueDot and create a new piece of furniture that could be part of an existing collection.

The bookcase is made of several parts. I chose to make individual quarter circle wood panels and alternated between 90 and 30 degree sections because it created a barrel like effect. These parts are meant to be glued together and I left gaps between the components. Before making the parts, I created a base sketch where I created the entire profile of the shelf. The purpose of this base sketch was to have a guide line to know the angles and geometry needed and to make sure all the parts would align properly. Most of the parts are simple boss extrudes with extrude cuts for the screw holes and shelf steps. The screw and threaded inserts use swept bosses and revolve cuts. There are slots around the shelf rim that start from the back and end 0.75 in from the front rim that provide a flat surface for the shelves to attach to. There is a step in each shelf that is the same size as the offset from the slots in the front rim. This step allows for the front of the shelves to align with the boarder and provide a nice circular rim on the front of the bookcase.

Inspired by Pi tables in Blu Dot’s Modern Living collection, this circular bookcase is meant to be hung in a living room, bedroom, or office, and provide a visually appealing way to display and arrange books. The fun design of this bookcase is able to blend in to a room better than traditional bookcase. Blu Dot has two geometries for the table, a side table with 3 panels arranged in a spiral forming a center triangle, and a coffee table with five panels that spiral to form a center pentagon. Both tables are available in a combination of powder-coated steel and either walnut or ash. This design is made from walnut and adds a sixth panel to form a central hexagon, providing two horizontal shelves. The hexagon in the center is large enough to place a small plant or other décor to further tie the bookcase into a room. Bookcases tend to be about 12 ¼ and 15 ¾ inches deep. I chose the depth of 13 inches as this depth provided some space for slightly larger books but does not stick out too far from the wall.

CONCEPT

DETAILS

I wanted the shelf to be easy to assemble and disassemble, so instead of using wood screws to hold the bookcase together, I chose to use ¼-20 low profile hex screws and barbed threaded inserts. I also added a counterbore to make the screws flush. This helps hide the screws a bit better as well as reduces the chance of a book getting caught on a screw.

bottom of page