db hides its details within
From the outside, Db’s Ramverk Alu is an aluminum suitcase that appears restrained and minimalistic. Broad panels of silver metal run almost uninterrupted across the shell with clean lines and smooth surfaces. Much of its complexity is revealed once the case is opened. Inside, beneath its mesh lining, a network of screws run along the inner frame, custom housings occupy the corners, and the hardware that would usually puncture the exterior has been pulled inward. Across the suitcase, Db developed 369 custom components to make the construction work this way.
‘If you go off the shelf, you have something that is great for someone else’s purpose,‘ co-founder Truls Brataas tells designboom. Standard luggage hardware arrives with its own dimensions and engineering logic already fixed, so the team began drawing many of those pieces itself. The exercise went far beyond hiding rivets. Each fitting had to work structurally while belonging to the same visual system, down to the housings that connect Db’s case to wheels made by Japanese manufacturer Hinomoto. ‘Sometimes these custom parts actually make for a really, really good design,‘ Brataas continues.
the Ramverk Alu case keeps its fastening system behind a clean aluminum shell | images © Db
369 parts behind a clean shell
The outer skin stays relatively free of hardware because so much of the assembly has been pulled to the other side of the aluminum. Inside, those connections remain visible and accessible. The CenterFrame runs through the middle of the case as a structural spine, increasing torsional rigidity and helping absorb impacts, while the EdgeFrame protects the perimeter. Even the trolley handle sits within a unibody aluminum housing designed to strengthen the full handle path.
Ramverk Alu develops a structural idea already present in Db’s Ramverk Pro, where the CenterFrame helped organize the suitcase around a rigid middle section. That framework is made more explicit with aluminum. The position of a hinge affects the frame around it, a wheel housing has to meet the corner cleanly, and even the depth of a fastener determines what remains visible once the shell is closed. Db’s earlier Rib-Cage construction approached soft luggage in a similar way by using internal structure to inform the case’s outward identity.
Truls Brataas describes simplicity as the final stage of a complex design process
an object designed to open again
‘Can you make things easier to repair?‘ Brataas recalls asking during development. In Ramverk Alu, permanent riveted connections are replaced with mechanical fasteners that can be reached with a Phillips screwdriver and a hex key. If a component takes the impact, the case can be opened around that area and the damaged piece addressed independently. Repair starts with access, which means thinking about disassembly while the suitcase is still being designed.
The screws therefore solve two problems at once. They allow the case to come apart later, and their placement helps keep its outer skin free of scattered fasteners. ‘The functions become a really, really nice form,‘ Brataas explains. Inside the suitcase, the mechanism stays visible enough to understand. The repair system becomes part of what the user sees every time the case opens, even if it spends years without being needed.
opening the luggage reveals custom hardware arranged across the inner frame
prototypes to begin
Truls Brataas describes a process that moves repeatedly between physical prototypes and digital models, with rough objects entering the conversation early. A mock-up can expose a problem with proportion long before a finished prototype exists, especially when an apparently small adjustment has consequences elsewhere in the case. The team can then return to the digital model, refine the geometry, and build again. For an object assembled from hundreds of individual pieces, those exchanges become part of the design itself.
Material experiments often begin outside the luggage industry altogether. ‘It’s super interesting when you have a material made for a whole different purpose,‘ Brataas says. Ramverk Alu uses separate aluminum alloys according to the work each section has to perform. A 6061-T5 aluminum CenterFrame runs through the middle of the case and distributes loads, and a 5052-H32 EdgeFrame takes force around the perimeter. Once it’s closed, the distinction disappears into the same silver body.
Db developed 369 components for the rivetless Ramverk Alu construction
scandinavian restraint through engineering
When Brataas talks about Scandinavian design, he comes back to function before appearance. ‘It’s made for a purpose,‘ he explains. ‘You try to make those functions as simple as possible.‘ He connects that attitude with the region’s relationship to nature and with a culture where objects have often been developed around available resources. Minimalism, in that sense, can emerge from asking each element to earn its place.
Ramverk Alu takes that idea somewhere slightly unexpected. Its cleanest surfaces belong to the side that reveals the least about how the suitcase works. When it’s opened, the engineering becomes far more expressive, with screws and custom components tracing the interior almost like a diagram of its own construction. The exterior looks simple because the team designed so much behind it.
screws can be reached from inside using a Phillips screwdriver and hex key