German designer Thomas Schnur is pleased to announce that he will be exhibiting three products at the 2012 Salone Satellite in Milan, including the noteworthy "Rubber Table."The drain or plunger is an item, which, though it receives little attention, is actually extremely useful. Rubber Table adopts its idiosyncratic aesthetic and transfers it into a new environment. The rubber plunger has become a table leg—setting in motion a new way of looking at this ambivalent object. Manufactured with dyed foam rubber the color and the surface feel of the original object are preserved.

I imagine that the object has five legs for stability's sake, though this trait somehow underscores its semblance to a Martian quintaped: I wouldn't be surprised to get home late one night to discover my pet "Rubber Table" puttering around my living room with Roomba-like tenacity.

For what it's worth, the "Rubber Table" also floats... though I don't know if it would have any utility as a floatation device.

Schnur is also exhibiting the "Hook Up" coatrack, in which "all basic components are threaded... the hooks are screwed in the rod, and the rod is screwed in the metal base." Thus, the space-saving solution requires no additional hardware, since all of the connections consist of threading; indeed, even its form suggests the concept behind the piece.

Lastly, the "Fragment Table" consists of "four metal brackets, four wooden rods, four wooden sections, four plastic tracks, four plastic plugs and a table top," where each component is equally essential to the composition of the whole.

The three designs are not intended to constitute a new collection or series per se; rather, "Each product holds [its] own core idea which pervades the construction at all levels. Their consequent composition reduces conventional structures which results in authentic and straight products." Thus, the conceptual basis of the "Rubber Table" is "the transformation of the toilet plunger in combination with the examination of the material rubber." The other two designs shift from the raw material towards process: "The coat stand Hook up addresses the connections of the single components or screwing. Regarding the Fragment Table the focus lies on the importance of each individual part as on the relation of the single parts with the whole." (These works are rather less interesting, IMHO.)

Schnur notes that "After developing an idea it´s important to me to work out the right form intuitively. In the process I'm influenced by my interest for anonymous design."