Oh, awesome, modular cube-shaped retail fixtures, where were you when I needed you?

Milan-based industrial designer Marc Sadler is developing Ombelico, a [presumably] low-cost, flatpack storage and display system, with the Italian manufacturer Alu. It's made from WPC, wood plastic composite, a recycled resin that's mostly wood flour [!], which is normally used for decking and other heavy-use outdoor applications.

A stack is held together by an off-the-back-of-the-truck, webbed tension belt, which has a nice resonance with classically chaotic agglomeration of drawers Tejo Remy did for Droog Design way back in 1991. Holy crap, that was 17 years ago.

There's no mention of Ombelico on either Alu's or Sadlers' site, so don't get caught up planning any insanely sustainable storage walls around it any time soon.

more pics: Ombelico: Alu e Marc Sadler [elmanco, in italian, via mocoloco]
Tejo Remy. 'You Can't Lay Down Your Memory' Chest of Drawers. 1991 [moma.org]
Previously: DT Checklist: modular storage to fill kids room gap