Self-Locking Storage

A client wants to cellar thousands of bottles of wine in a small space. Wine racks must store bottles efficiently, horizontally and preferably individually. The joinery process has to be quick because there are so many joints. Rack designs must be robust as the weights involved are surprisingly large. What’s the best design solution?

This was a real scenario for me. I needed a joinery technique that could be reproduced thousands of times and which was inordinately strong. I estimated that the cellar space could hold at least 1500 bottles of wine. At individual weights of 1.2–1.6kg, such a volume of wine weighs 1800–2400kg.

Besides the aesthetic and engineering concerns, there were two further constraints. First, as with all furniture destined for confined spaces, the racks had to be assembled in situ, otherwise they would not fit through the doorway. That meant).