From salvaging precious second-hand books to crafting marbled furniture

Innovatively salvaging second-hand books and utilizing them to craft a furniture collection – Design student Willem Zwiers introduces Transformed Remnants.

Made from books including several Bibles and assorted self-help literature, this eclectic but one-of-a-kind range embodies a side table and desk lamp as well as a bookshelf.

As an autonomous designer “my work is extremely intuitive and experimental and this is how I stumble upon certain forms, materials and colors. By creating my own working methods and even my own tools, I’m able to push the boundaries of what seems impossible!” shares Zwiers. 

He estimates that several hundred volumes were needed to make the three pieces – all of which he was able to source from local second-hand shops as they were set to be thrown away due to small defects such as missing pages.

“When I picked them up, my car was full of books, like completely full. Not a single other book would have fit into my car!” he adds. 

Additionally ensuring each piece still had its spine for structural integrity – he removed the covers and used a circular saw to slice the books into horizontal strips, back in his studio.

Much like Tetris blocks, these excerpts were further slotted together, bent and squeezed to fill various hand-made molds, saturated with diluted wood glue and seamlessly compacted together with rubber bands and wood clamps.

This beautifully resulted in a composite reminiscent of particle board but with the swirling texture of marble that he assembled into a series of alluring raw-edged furniture products.

“We treat marble like it’s precious and I found it an interesting contrast to this material because we throw away a lot of books!” says Zwiers.

Hinting at the origin of the material – individual words and cut-off sentences are visible on the furniture’s roughly hewn sides.

All of the pieces are stable enough to stand on their own and hold up other small items, although the material is not yet strong enough to bear the weight of a person.

“I could still develop it even more with higher pressure, maybe even in a vacuum machine to get rid of all the air. It should then be even stronger and I could then make chairs out of it. That will be a challenge for the future!” Zwiers concludes.