The social shelves project

About

The social shelf project inquires how shifted perspectives in relation to materiality can produce alternative relationship between users/makers and small objects. In the context of social design, reciprocity between human and non-human actors is key. This bubble action uses the mundane space of a shelf as a material and conceptual constraint to initiate conversations with people and their direct surroundings, engaging them in new material processes.

The social shelf project in short: sustainable, economic, ‘transparent’ designs. An idealistic approach to making considering whether small designs made in contextual situations and for the local by the local can create new strategies for people to bond with their surroundings more empathetical relationship to objects can bring social change.

excerpt from Social Shelves: an Itstory

'The social shelf project is a two-fold investigation. First it aims to re-visit the mundane space most individuals interact with on a daily basis: the shelf. In turn, with a new acquired understanding of that space, it invites, you, the reader, to re-think your relationship to objects both as potential users and makers.
N.B. This object is purposely referred to as social shelf and not simply "bookshelf" or "shelf", as the object under study does not only function as a space for books or other artefacts, but also as a physical trope for social structures and community building.

This project is a world-building experiment. Using non-human perspectives it attempts to redefine what material thinking—broadly understood as the encounter of practice and theory in artistic and design fields—can mean to anyone in and outside of those fields. We, social shelves will talk to you, the reader, directly. Together we will investigate the following question: How can a better understanding of socialised objects¹ create opportunities to affect the social design of tomorrow?

As part of the original case study for this theoretical investigation, material experiments take place in parallel to the writing process. One month after the other, between 2022 and 2023 five social shelves have been prototyped, built, and trialled across different locations in Amsterdam and Rotterdam, the Netherlands.'

¹ The identification ‘socialised objects’ is a self-assigned term for artefacts that fulfil their true nature in relation to others. A term that could be compared in a human-field-theory to what Bruno Latour referred to as the anthropomorphism of an object, ‘which has human shape or that which gives shape to humans.’ (Latour, 1992, p.235).

Five social shelves

To learn more about the social shelves please read the Material Reviews and Social Shelves: an Itstory.

flatview all shelves illustration

B. Zamp

This social shelf has been manufactured to respond to the needs of transport and display of XPUB publications. The department's many appearances at different fairs and events need an object that can host varying size of publications produced within the master.

Technical Sheet

Suitcase mode

on the road 3 November 2022: market, elevator, escalator, train

Display mode

WOW, Zinecamp, November 2022

Het Bollenpandje, Take-Away, November 2022

Platform Post, Not Just a Fair, April 2023

B.B. Wop

This social shelf has been manufactured to respond to the needs of storage and display of GRA (Gerrit Rietveld Academie) Students. Made in line with the BB tools series, produced since 2019.

Technical Sheet

Prototype 1

Prototype 2

Prototype 3

V. Osox

This social shelf has been manufactured to respond to the needs of storage and motion of a new active squat in Amsterdam. Made to resemble the dimensions of moving boxes.

Technical Sheet

J. Halen

This social shelf has been manufactured to respond to the need of support of a collection of heavy and big publications from a classmate. A two-fold metal book-end in Rotterdam.

Technical Sheet

P. Enches

This social shelf has been manufactured as a gift and an invitation to the public space, for the benches of Amsterdam.