Featured in Dutch Design Week 2022, and born out of a collaboration with Haitham Haidar (Tenor), Modular Thing is a five-sided wooden unit that lends itself to a multitude of uses by accommodating several arrangements. Through negotiating what it can be with what you want it to be, Modular Thing lives within the discourse of its limitations & its open ended-ness, its servitude & its range of possibilities, and the agency of its user with its own tactile intelligence.

During Beirut Design Week 2017, eight participants were invited to arrange Thing into different formations and compositions of their own. Based on insights from these studies, and through a fund from Goethe Institute, we developed the design into a foldable flatpack that uses less material, and streamlines the multiple units of the original design into a single stackable and easy to assemble piece.

It can be easily dismantled and packed flat, to allow for easier storage and transportation. The mechanism that was developed also allows Modular Thing to flip 180 degrees, giving it more versatility in the space it lives in. With sustainability in mind, Modular Thing uses offcut pieces of natural wood taken from scraps in woodworking shops, making each piece unique. Each unit is then finished with a metal shelf that creates two usable strange pockets inside.