What it is
Our workshop is in a heritage building: we can’t screw anything into the walls or floor. So the furniture has to stand on its own, come apart in an afternoon, and leave the room as we found it.
Caisse (French for box or crate) is our answer: an open system of plywood boxes.
- One unit, 150 mm, in every direction. A box is named by its size:
4x4x4is a 600 mm cube,2x4x1a flat 300 × 600 × 150 box. - Every box sits on every other box. Holes at the unit centres, a printed key, one bolt.
- Bought as 1200 × 600 panels only, so everything fits in a car, cut with a hand router, a circular saw and printed jigs, with as little waste as possible.
The electronics station that travels
The first build is a bench whose top box opens like a laptop: the lid is a wall of instruments, the base is the work surface and power. Lift it and two carry cases off the bench, plug in one cord, and the electronics bench is at a repair café, a school or a market.
Why we drew our own
We liked an existing modular workbench system, but its licence is personal-use only. So we drew Caisse from scratch and will publish it openly. A small program generates the 3D model, a picture and the cutting list for any layout.
Where it stands
Version 0.2 drawn and generated. Next: print the jigs and build one box from offcuts, then load-test it before anyone stacks anything heavy on it.
Les plans sont gratuits — the plans are free.