Battle of the Front Hall Organizers: PLANT wages war on clutter

[Above: Leaning Loop]

Newsflash: we are officially industry leaders in the niche market for entryway storage units. In the same week that Leaning Loop, designed by PLANT’s Jason van der Burg, was showcased at IIDEXCanada in Toronto, a PLANT-designed front-hall shoe organizer received a shout-out in a Houzz blog post on keep-tidy ideas for compact entryways.

Jason, a recent University of Toronto graduate (MArch 2014), designed Leaning Loop for a furniture design course he took in architecture school. This organizer combines the functions of a clothing hanger, bag holder, gadget shelf, magnet board, mirror or writing surface, key holder and shoe shelf into one sleek, space-saving package that needs no installation—it simply leans against a wall. Leaning Loop and the 14 other designs featured in the Second Annual IIDEX Woodshop use ash, a wood currently under attack by the emerald ash borer; in Toronto alone, this beetle is expected to bring down more than 200,000 ash trees over the next five years, and the IIDEX Woodshop designs aim to reduce the number of felled trees that would otherwise go to landfills.

Leaning Loop generated plenty of buzz at IIDEX, and we were still basking in Jason’s triumph when we learned that Laura Gaskill had featured PLANT’s shoe storage unit for for a Toronto residence in her Houzz blog post “7 Keep-Tidy Tips for Compact Entryways.” As she noted, there was “only a sliver of wall” to work with here, but thoughtful design can enlist even the smallest of spaces to combat clutter.

[Below: PLANT’s shoe storage solution for a Toronto residence]