The influences of Brooklyn life could be seen in many of the designs on display last weekend at “Bklyn Designs 2005,” a juried exhibition of furniture, lighting, textiles, and home accessories held at the St. Ann’s Warehouse and Brooklyn Designs Gallery in DUMBO.

One criterion for acceptance to the show, sponsored by the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, was that the applicants needed to have produced their work in Brooklyn. The Brooklyn backgrounds of the 47 designers chosen for the exhibit – from more than 100 entries – affected their work in different ways. Because each artist in the show understood the variables of Brooklyn housing, many focused on ways to maximize storage, producing clever pieces that, with a bit of rearranging, could multi-task in different roles. Others developed polished items with enough impact to hold their own in dramatic, loft-like spaces.

Finding workable solutions to storage problems is the goal of architect and product designer Manche Mitchell. Mr. Mitchell’s “Box” system offers an elegant storage solution: Each stackable box, available in four sizes (the smallest is a 10.5-inch square; the largest, a 16.5-inch square), can be assembled facing front or back, so the piece can be used for shelving while functioning as a double-sided wall. Although the basic boxes are made of materials such as birch-edged in mahogany (they can be custom-ordered in different woods), and backed with anodized aluminum, they possess an unfinished, industrial quality. Each shelving system can be refigured, with boxes pushed close together to form a solid wall, or pulled apart leaving gaps for an airy unit with a Mondrian-like aesthetic. “I got tired of packing and unpacking boxes whenever I moved,” said Mr. Mitchell. “With the boxes, all you do is slide them apart and stack them as is in the truck.” The boxes retail for $350 a piece (Manche Mitchell Design, 718-504-9628, www.manchemitchell.com).

Like Mr. Mitchell, Linda Feinberg migrated from apartment to apartment and wanted furniture that could fold up easily and travel with her. “I like to move around a lot,” said Ms. Feinberg, a graphic designer, architect, and creator of multifunctional furniture. Ms. Feinberg participates in “everyspace,” a collective in Clinton Hill with four members who meet periodically to discuss design issues specific to the urban dweller. Her modular system “Adjungo 1” begins with a simple wooden bench that resembles a slatted fence. The single module can be folded for seating or used flat as the platform for a twin bed. A consumer who wants to expand the piece into a broader platform for a larger bed, a longer seating arrangement, and even shelving, can buy additional benches in the “Adjungo 11” system ($400-$500 a piece) that lock together with an innovative three-latch system. Asked to describe her style, Ms. Feinberg said, “People say the pieces have an Asian feeling and they do, but the look is really a hybrid of all my influences” (Linda Feinberg, 646-331-5463, lin_design@earthlink.net).

While Ms. Feinberg’s and Mr. Mitchell’s designs reflect the demands of city life, carpet designer Amy Helfand, who resides in Red Hook, is inspired by nature and the architecture used to contain it. The rugs and textiles from her “Wild Garden” collection are influenced by the Wild Garden at Wave Hill, a public garden and gallery in the Bronx where, in 2004, Ms. Helfand mounted an exhibition of floral-themed collages and textiles. Her brilliantly toned designs feature stylized plant and sea life dispersed on a field of meandering curves, reminiscent of a landscape designer’s blueprint.

“Everyone can connect to flowers,” Ms. Helfand said, “but I’m interested in what else people see in the shapes.” Her wool and silk “Non-Site Plan Brown and Orange,” with its flat organic mirrored forms and vibrating hues, resembles a Rorschach test for the visually gifted. Prices for rugs begin at $100 a square foot; textiles retail for $85-$125 a yard (Amy Helfand, 718-643-9577,www.amyhelfand.com).

Susan Woods refashions materials originally used for other purposes into innovative new creations. Some of her screens are made with flattened conical bedsprings, manipulated into rows of spirals; other screens are crafted from raw poplar plywood into gentle waves. Ms. Woods employs the same wood to fashion clean-lined benches. “Material is my inspiration,” said Ms. Woods, a classically trained sculptor and founder of Aswoon/Susan Woods Studio, a showroom in DUMBO that she shares with the furniture designer Robert Martin. “I love to take raw materials and turn them into classically beautiful objects,” she said. The intertwining wires of her bedspring screens have the delicacy of lace, and when a light shines through the springs’ grooves, it casts rings of shadows on the floors and walls. Ms. Woods uses a common building material – curved pine moldings most often painted and employed for architectural detail – and working with the wood in its unfinished state, joins the pieces invisibly so there is nothing to disturb the bands of light and dark tones on the surface of each screen. Ms. Woods hand-rubs the wood with light polyurethane so the surface is smooth, but not slick. “For me the prototype is always the most beautiful because it reflects the artist’s thought process,” she said. “It’s important that every piece have the edge of being the first.” Screens sell for approximately $4,000; benches are $9,500 (Susan Woods, Aswoon/Susan Woods Studio, 718-858-7006,www.aswoon.com).