Furniture taken out of context can be misleading – sure, it looks great in the pictures but what will it do for (or to) an actual living space in a real room of your home? These sizable shelving units are as much about making space as they are about storing books and other odds and ends. Most importantly, they are shown in creative interior design contexts rathre than posed against blank white backgrounds.

Set along a wall in a modern home, these designer storage objects by Alf De Fre begin to blur the boundaries between architecture, interior and furniture design. Spatially, they seem as much like extensions of the surrounding walls or art placed against them as they do places to put things. They are more than just bookcases or shelving units.

Hanging wall and flush floor units are more physically connected to wall surfaces, but the shelving and cabinets set in the center of a room are arguably even more architectural. These serve as spatial dividers and room separators, semi-permeable barriers that act like partition walls as well as storage areas.