The Spacedock is a retro-futurist storage-and-display pedestal for luxury keyboards—made from terrazzo and engineered with a focus on robustness and physical security.

It is my answer to the longstanding lack of quality means of keyboard display. All existing display stands I've found have always struck me as cheap, flimsy, or ugly—often all three at once. The idea of entrusting a $500+ keyboard to a $20 laser-cut acrylic stand seems dubious and disproportionate, so I wanted to make something better.

Unsolicited praise from Spacedock owners

Luxurious custom materials

The Spacedock is made of a custom-blended terrazzo with subtle, highly granular—and ever-so-slightly sparkly—translucent quartz inclusions. This engineered stone is the product of my countless prototypes and experiments to get the appearance just right. This material bears the heft and beauty of solid stone but with the physical robustness and precision-formed geometry of a polymer.

Wide compatibility

In designing the Spacedock, I used an industrial 3D scanner to digitize a wide range of keyboards from third parties in addition to the full Norbauer collection. Many tweaks and refinements were made in simulated 3D space to the Spacedock geometry to find a sweet spot that would accomodate the widest possible range of keyboards, from tiny 40% boards all the way up to mammoth keyboards like the IBM Model-M.

Edge of keyboard forward or backward

The special grip material on the interior base, described below, makes it possible to let the bottom edge of the keyboard rest fully forward or fully backward without sliding. The back position is helpful for keyboards where the lower keys might otherwise touch the forward retaining wall. (Forward vs. backward can also just be an aesthetic choice.)

Physical security

One of my primary design objectives for the Spacedock was extreme heft and resistance to slippage. I wanted something that felt solid and didn't allow one's precious keyboards to slide around in (or out of) the stand easily. Equally, it was important that the stand itself remain solidly in place on the surface where it lives. Hence the choice of heavy terrazzo.

Special über-grippy bumpon material

For the mission-critical contact surfaces I use a highly engineered non-marring material from 3M that has almost magically grippy anti-slip properties while also being pliant and unlikely to damage adjacent surfaces. It is fantastically expensive to use (for tiny bits of die-cut rubber anyway), but nothing matched its performance in my tests.

Because slipping isn't a concern against the rear pad—and because it is more visible—I use beautiful fine-grained natural cork there.

Specifications

Dimensions 13.5cm (5.3") x 13.5cm (5.3") x 10.5cm (4.1")

Weight 1.5kg (3.3lbs)