Design collective Outofstock has suspended a closable cupboard within an open display box to form this cabinet for Danish furniture brand Bolia.

The open-fronted Flag sideboard by Outofstock features a closed cube that appears to hover inside.

A door on the front of the cube creates a closed storage space, in contrast to the open display encouraged by the rest of the rectangular piece.

Outofstock is formed from an international group of designers: Gabriel Tan and Wendy Chua from Singapore, Gustavo Maggio from Argentina and Sebastián Alberdi from Spain.

The outer body of their cabinet is available in natural or blue-stained oak veneer, while the inner cube comes in natural, blue or red-stained oak veneer.

This creates six possible colour combinations and a design that subtly references nautical flags.

"The four of us grew up in cities by the water - Singapore, Barcelona and Buenos Aires, and nautical flags are quite familiar to us, especially since Wendy was a sailor during her school days and I spent some years in the Navy," Tan told Dezeen.

"When we examined the graphical layout of a nautical flag, there is a strong contrast between dark and bright colours, and vertical and horizontal lines," he continued. "Thinking about how to translate this contrast three-dimensionally, we decided to suspend a positive space within a negative space, allowing people to display and hide things at the same time."

The floating box is offset from the centre of the console, providing space to store larger pieces or stacks on one side and slimmer items on the other.

Thin books and small trinkets can also be placed in the gaps above or below the closed cupboard.

"The nooks between the suspended box and the hollow outer box provide interesting opportunities for our objects or books to be displayed," said Tan.

Outofstock's previous collaboration with Bolia resulted in Bridge Shelves – a storage unit inspired by suspension bridges consisting of three shelves hung from a baton using bent steel rods.

Other projects by the collective include Vanity Shelf, a hanging storage box and mirror, and Hatched, a birds nest-inspired cafe.