Dutch designer Jan Van Hoof exhibited a wall made of cut-up books at the Design Academy Eindhoven graduation show as part of Dutch Design Week earlier this month.

“Books like this tell us a lot of stories, the story in the book, the story of the book itself as a product you own with a history and the story as a collection of books,” says Van Hoof. “With my project storyboard I tried to give the books, with all the stories in it, a new life as a new material.”

More designs using cut up books in our previous story: Book Vases by Laura Cahill.

The following is from Jan Van Hoof:

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With the project storyboard I have tried to give a new dimension to the recycling of books.

Everyone has a lot of books and the collection of books is always growing, when there is no space left on the bookshelf, you have to try to get rid of a part of your collection. At first these books get a nice place in a box on the attic, but at some time the books become garbage.

Books like this tell us a lot of stories, the story in the book, the story of the book itself as a product what you own with a history and the story as a collection of books. Usually these books are made to new paper and all of this is lost, but with my project storyboard I tried to give the books, with all the stories in it, a new life as a new material.

I tear off the covers of the books, cut them in 3 pieces of the same height and glue this pieces together to blocks of 30 cm high and 75 cm wide. These blocks can be used to build a wall like a room divider or as some kind of “wallpaper” and have a sound- suppressing effect.