Dwelling
Built-in furniture
housing kitchen school library office
Furniture built together with the building and fixed to the wall, the floor or a recess in the wall.
What it solves
It makes the most of every centimeter and leaves the center of the room free. In the tropics it must let air through and stand away from damp walls to avoid mold and termites.
Today
Design it with standard modules, moisture-resistant materials, a ventilated plinth and replaceable hardware. Put everyday items between hip and shoulder height.
Common mistake
Building furniture into damp, unventilated walls, where mold and termites advance unnoticed.
Tomorrow
A neighborhood carpenter with a CNC cutter can make custom furniture that can later be taken apart and reassembled in another house. Height-adjustable modules accompany the person as they age.
Fact About 10,000 Frankfurt kitchens measuring 1.9 by 3.4 meters were installed in the late 1920s.
Where it comes from
- 1Japanese house of the Edo period Japan, since the late 17th century
The kaidan-dansu, a chest in the shape of a staircase, was made to fit the house, and in some northern farmhouses it gave access to the attic. - 2Modern social housing Frankfurt, Germany, 1926
Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky designs a complete kitchen with integrated cabinets, sink and stove, the forerunner of today’s modular kitchen.
Masters
- Le Corbusier Cabanon, Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, France, 1952
In a minimal cabin by the sea all the furniture is built in, with a desk, shelves and a bench bed. It teaches how much a small space yields when furniture and architecture are designed together.
Appears in the routes
See also
Also in Dwelling
Diagrams and texts by LDB Arquitectura. They are shared under the CC BY 4.0 license, which allows them to be used and adapted with credit to the source.