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Orgafile: Eco-friendly, expandable filing system

By Rain Noe - April 9, 2010

in Object Culture

PRISONER TRANSFER, MUG SHOT REQUEST, POLICE VEHICLE REQ.; These are some of the file labels taped to the free file cabinet I recently acquired outside of the City Clerk offices in Manhattan, where they were throwing out at least a dozen metal 1950s era cabinets, all just sitting on the sidewalk. I could only carry one, and later that day a garbage truck came and picked up the rest. All of them, sadly, are going into landfill.

I could understand file cabinets being thrown away if a company goes out of business, but presumably New York City has not purged its inmate population, solved every single crime and shut the City Clerk offices down; more likely they are getting some new filing system--I doubt they made the switch to digital--and getting rid of the old.

One filing system designed not to be thrown away is the Orgafile Modular Filing System, a "21st century" system of expandable/changeable filing cabinets that can "grow as you go."

Designed by Adrian van Wijk and Jamie McDonald of Vancouver design firm JDI Design, Orgafile products include a neat, Lego-like ClickStack system that is designed to be assembled with no tools at all, not even a little Ikea wrench you can lose and curse at.

Best of all, Orgafile products are designed to use minimal metal and are made from recycled wood. Unsurprisingly, the system has taken home a Red Dot Design Award.

Below is a video that is essentially a five-minute commercial, but it does give you a good look at the system:

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Arnold van Wijk

14 years ago

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Only one drawer can open at a time. It is designed that way.

There are other safety features. Comments and questions

are welcome.
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Adrian

14 years ago

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Hi Mook, that is a good point, Orgafile is the only modular cabinet with that feature integrated, when we designed the Orgafile system that was one of three key innovations that made this potable.

1) the LinkFit allow the drawers to be stacked and fastened by just sliding them in position and
2) the TouchFit an anti-tilt locking system that restricts the drawers so only one can be opened at a time. Neither of these two unique technologies have been seen on any other modular cabinet.
3) Module lock so the drawer module cant open when it is carried also another first.
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mook

14 years ago

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Great, until it tips over and kills you. Expensive file cabinets have a mechanism that only allows 1 draw to open at a time so they don't become unbalanced.
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