As an industrial designer Fukasawa is acutely focused on human interaction with his products and believes that their success relies on these interactions being immediate and intuitive. His minimal aesthetic is in service to this effort, but like some of his contemporaries he rejects the label, stating that 'to describe this shelf with a generic term such as “minimalism” doesn’t do it justice. I prefer to talk about the maximum effort required to create such a fantastic product. Minimalism is extremely difficult to achieve.’

The ‘Outline’ shelving system was designed for the exhibition celebrating the 100th anniversary of Pastoe, the Dutch furniture company. The system was included under the heading ‘Visions’, the section of the exhibition devoted to future development. Fukasawa and Pastoe share a sensibility which the designer has described as ‘minimal, simple and above all, comprehensible without any further explanation’. The shelving was not put into production and the present lot is one of two sets to have been made.