Companies update a centuries-old idea

One of the hottest space dividing concepts is actually older than dirt. Room dividers have been used since the 7th century in ancient China and the Japanese began using lighter, more portable room dividers for tea ceremonies, religious events and outdoor processions around the same time.

Eventually European travelers developed their own version of Asian screen dividers using wood, leather, silk, mirrors and decoupage. Let's look at some of your current choices.

In a studio apartment or a loft, a folding or hanging screen is an easy and practical introduction as a way to segregate one function from another. Once you accept the fact that a humble screen does not offer auditory privacy, there are all sorts of possibilities for ways to create mini "rooms" within one contiguous area.

You are looking at one of the 20th century classics: The Eames Folding Screen. This six-paneled, five-ply screen has natural face veneers with lightweight maple inner plies. It stands alone to create standing or seating privacy and divisions within an environment.

Each molded plywood section is connected by woven polypropylene mesh. You can find the screen in light ash, walnut, natural cherry and ebony. The ebony option is stain on ash veneer, and inner plies are not as visible. This screen sells for just under $2,300 and works with contemporary styles.

Of course, the Japanese are still producing shoji screens, known for being lightweight and amazingly portable. You can buy modern shoji online or hunt for vintage screens.

Ash, cherry, walnut, maple, birch and wood from Japan called keyaki might be used in combination with traditional Japanese rice paper to make the shoji today. There are also plastic rice paper substitutes that look authentic but offer greater durability.

Shoji can be used as free-standing screens or installed on rails to be sliding room dividers.

The simplicity of hanging cloth as a room partition is an exquisitely uncomplicated. My mother created a playhouse for us kids by simply throwing an old bedspread over the outdoor clothes lines and we were happy to have a little outdoor "room" in which to play.

Of course students of classic film will fondly recall the Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert movie "It Happened One Night" and its Academy Award-winning blanket divider scene!

Around 1849, San Francisco offered expensive, makeshift lodging houses to meet the demand of thousands of prospectors, hurriedly fashioned from planks and canvas. Cloth partitions made the hotel's "rooms" and separated the sitting room from the dining room, whose walls were lengths of calico fabric in San Francisco's Montgomery House. Surely this same idea can be used today with updated quality.

We have the luxury now days of cutting-edge hanging technology that allows for minimal wires to be mounted from walls or ceilings. You hardly notice the way in which the fabric is hung. This is not only a slick way to mount the handing device, but also it allows for the end user to stretch fabric floor to ceiling as well as wall to wall.

You can bet that in the 1850s the cloth was likely just pinned to a rope that was stretched wall to wall or tied around some kind of vertical supports in the rooms. We've come a long way since then.

From Italy comes the Geko Curtain that actually ships in pieces. There are 25 units per box and you have various shapes to choose from before you connect the pieces into a screen made up of translucent, high-tech polymer shapes. In an adult twist on tinker-toys, you decide which pattern you wish to create from the price list and order the number of pieces required to create the full panel.

With just a little online research you can discover outdoor, all-weather screens, to partitions designed for the workplace. Many of these can easily be adapted for residential use.

• Christine Brun is a San Diego-based interior designer and the author of "Small Space Living." Send questions and comments to her by email at christinebrun@sbcglobal.net.

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