Young German designer Florian Gross has a bookshelf concept entitled Konnex that will give its users many possibilities for constructing a singular bookshelf. It’s like an adult version of Lincoln Logs or Tinker Toys or Legos–which means that book lovers won’t just be obssessing about how to organize their reading collections, they’ll also be obsessing about how to organize their shelving units. Each Konnex package comes with three nesting squares that have slots or teeth.

Konnex Shelving. Designed by Florian Gross.

You fit together the trio of differently sized boxes by sliding the edge of one box into the slot of another box. I don’t want to get too graphic, but think of the linking system like the female and male ends of an extension cord.

Connect two sets of Konnex to create a wealth of combinations, a sort of Mondrian-esque formation that’s leapt off the canvas and landed in your living room–in the fabulous solidity of a three-dimensional object. The effect is made more graphic by the white body and black edges of the modular shelving unit. All the lines that come to fruition when these Konnex pieces are joined make me want to suggest this bookshelf system for mathematicians especially–both the Museum of Mathematics and the Goudreau Museum of Mathematics in Art and Science should own a few, not to mention the library at MIT. They would also work well in the game rooms of domino players or the pantries of chocolatiers. I can also envision Konnex inside the mansion of that ever-famous black-and-white-loving vixen known as Cruella de Vil.