The London design brand founded by ex-Established & Sons design director Mark Holmes has released its first piece of furniture – a shelving unit made of 33 precision-milled metal bars (+ slideshow).

"We've been developing ideas to scale up Minimalux without compromising quality and brand ideology for a while," said Mark Holmes, who launched Minimalux at Milan design week in 2009.

"In the process we've created a series of larger designs that maintain the same material and formal values we've worked very hard to build and communicate. Hash is the beginning of this and marks the introduction of a genre we'll be referring to within our collection as 'engineered furniture'."

Like much of Minimalux's existing range of deskware, tableware and accessories, Hash is manufactured in the UK and is available in either mirror-polished brass or stainless steel.

"Brass has never gone away but there's definitely been a resurgence in popularity over recent years," explained Holmes and Minimalux co-director Tamara Caspersz.

"Solid non-lacquered brass is a material that ages beautifully to create a rich natural patina but it also has the capacity to be brought back to life and returned to a bright polished shine. Part of the attraction in this is the idea that if it is nurtured and taken care of it will last forever - a refreshing concept in this day and age and our present throw-away culture."

Each of the 33 bars is connected using screws to create a grid-shaped frame that can be used for sorting books and magazines.

"Hash just consists of lines rather than sheets or layers and the strength and solidity of the metals we've chosen allows the use of relatively thin sections of bar - imparting a certain elegance and lightness of form to the overall design," Holmes and Casperz told Dezeen.

The oversized mesh structure creates a variety of visual effects when viewed from different angles, and the shape and name of the piece make reference to cross-hatch line drawings.

"It seemed an attractive concept to make a 3D version of that, with the horizontal lines providing a surface," said Holmes.

"I also really like the hash symbol, obviously popularised and made massively visible through Twitter - it looks like it could be a bookshelf."

Photographs are by Peer Lindgreen.