At first glance, the Kai Table looks just like a plain wooden coffee table for sitting in the center of your living room. Except with a bunch of rectangular lines etched in irregular patterns all around its boxy dimensions. Get busy on the edges, though, and out flip a bunch of doors, revealing a whole mass of storage spaces built into the deceptive furnishing.
Designed by Naoki Hirakoso and Takamitsu Kitahara, it’s a low-standing coffee table and multi-panel storage box. That’s right, you can use it both for parking stuff on top like a regular table, all while using the hidden spaces as closets and drawers.
The Kai Table measures 270 mm tall, with a top measuring 900 mm on all sides. Construction is all plywood, with a coated tilia japonica finish. Decked all over are a ridiculous amount of openings, including slides, swings and pivots, that each lead to a separate storage area. Open them all, like in the picture above, and the whole thing looks like a Transformer robot about to change into something. Suffice to say, telling your wife that you put the remote in the coffee table storage won’t lead to the easiest time finding it.
Unlike many fancy furniture that stay in the realm of concept prototypes, the Kai Table is actually for sale, although it looks like they’re doing it on a per order basis. Expensive, though, with a ¥600,000 (around $7,600) price. You can contact the designer directly for details.
[Hirakoso]