Round couch with surround shelves

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This illustration of a round couch with built-in bookshelves comes from Russian industrial designer Irina Zhdanova (unless she really goes by last name first, as it appears on her portfolio site).

Although I learned Russian in college, it’s too rusty -- and the type is too small -- for me to figure out what she’s saying about the couch in her mockups. What I can tell: It is imagined in chartreuse and turquoise, as well as red. It is clearly designed to be thinner at the top than at the bottom.

If it rolled 180 degrees, would it snap? Or could it roll and roll? Could the couch-shelf be repositioned with a gentle shove? I can see it in a cement-floored loft, being rolled along to follow the sun.

If it were to be roll-able, you’d have to really pack the books into those spaces so they wouldn’t shake loose. For some of us, though, that wouldn’t be tough at all.

-- Carolyn Kellogg