NATURE provides an overawing example of space economy by designing each part of the human body to serve more than one purpose. With our hands we feel, we make, we hold a pen and write. Through our mouths we talk and take in food and drink. If cornered by an enemy we can even bite. There is nothing new, therefore, in man’s employing this principle of nature when designing furniture that can be put to two or more uses is similar. Space-saving ideas are not confined to furniture serving more than one purpose; they also apply to self-stacking chairs which enable a dining-room to be converted into a sitting-room at a few seconds notice, fold-away desks, and nests of side-tables that can be closed together and put into a corner out of the way when not required. The stacking idea has even spread to crockery–so economizing in china-cupboard space. In the kitchen, square plastic food containers take up less room than cylindrical ones because they can be placed close together without wasting space between.
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