Italian glass company Casali is known for making interior and exterior doors, both plate and curved, hinged and sliding, single and double, colored and clear. Casali offers patterns as varied as tree branches and abstract lines, or they will custom-design something entirely unique. One glance at their website confirms that “Casali has turned glass into something new, crossing the boundaries of traditional processing and rethinking this ancient material.”

Aalto’s Savoy Vase installation for MADE Expo 2009. Designed and manufactured by Casali.

The Casali product most people aren’t familiar with is Structures. These customizable glass rooms can serve as simple dividing spaces or complex art installations. Casali showcased Structures at the 2009 Milano Architettura Design Edilizia (MADE Expo) this past February, offering two playful constructions: the Rubik’s Cube and Aalto’s Savoy Vase. Using different squares of colored glass, Casali recreated a giant unsolved Rubik’s Cube. As linear as the iconic puzzle is, Casali also exhibited its complete opposite: a massive recreation of Aalto’s famous Savoy Vase, which is all S-curves. Although these examples may be extreme, they do highlight the versatility of Structures–“as unusual as it is unique, for rationalising residential and/or professional spaces.”

Rubik’s Cube installation at MADE Expo 2009. Designed and manufactured by Casali.

The colored glass Structures offer privacy while allowing natural light inside, making them great options for office complexes with grand, open spaces. With Structures (not to mention the myriad options available in plastic partitions), the cubicle should be a relic of the past. In residential projects, think of what Structures could do for children’s rooms, libraries, or home offices. Or they can be used to create closets where none exist–think London flats and Manhattan bedrooms. The possibilities of Casali’s glass (color, pattern, shape) make any design feasible, but the real potential with Structures is for form to follow function. Create an enlarged version of a particular piece of furniture or art for a room meant to showcase that very object (Blobulous immediately comes to mind). Plan a miniature model of the house that houses the Structure–perfect play for architects (imagine finding a smaller version of I.M. Pei’s pyramid within the Louvre). Don’t wait for the next design show to see what Structures can do. Casali revived a Hungarian puzzle and a Finnish vase. What do you envision?