That's the Growth Table, by L.A.-based architects Tim Durfee and Iris Anna Regn. While it's not practical for say, a Manhattan apartment, who wouldn't love to stick one of these into an open-plan office and use it to reinforce hierarchy among co-workers?

Unsurprisingly, neither of those applications are why the piece was designed. Former architecture professor Durfee runs an eponymous studio focused on conceptual design and media, while Regn's specialtiy is social practice and material experimentation; the collaboration between the two has yielded a bit more depth of thought than my pedestrian blogger's jibes.

Growth Table is one of a series of objects and spaces modified from a variety of familiar types to sponsor specific activities for adults as well as children. It creates an instant and intergenerational community united by the simple act of drawing.

Children impulsively and un-selfconsciously indulge in spontaneous mark-making when presented with a place to sit, a rightly-positioned surface, and colorful instruments with which to draw. The Growth Table creates these conditions - but at a range of scales - to also attract older children and adults who share the memory of countless hours of childhood art-making. The structure activates a public outdoor or indoor space by providing a catalyst for spontaneous social behavior that is both exceptional and utterly familiar. When the form of the Table is multiplied or expanded, it creates a community scaled art-parklett, or transforms a public interior into a literal "drawing room."

You can see more of the duo's work here.