Core77

Sign In / Join Now

Rain's Weekly Design Minutiae: Always Look at the Undersides of Tables

You can learn stuff down on your hands and knees

By Rain Noe - March 24, 2017

in Furniture Design

On a late-night dogwalk I passed these display tables in the window of a store on Crosby Street.

Enter a caption (optional)

I was struck by the unusual design of the legs, which flare out in both the X- and Y-axes to meet the apron:

Enter a caption (optional)

Surface B wraps around to blend into surface C, as shown in the crude sketch below, which was what I envisioned in my head as I was looking at the table.

Enter a caption (optional)

There's two sketches because I wasn't sure what surface A would look like if the top were removed. To find out, I crouched down to get a look from underneath and found a couple of surprises:

Enter a caption (optional)

Surprise #1. The plywood corner braces. No metal hardware here, just simple strips and triangles. You can see the dots where they've been attached with a pin nailer. I expected something more elegant, so here was a reminder that if the customer's never gonna see it, it doesn't matter what they look like.

Enter a caption (optional)

Surprise #2. The center support appears to be solid wood. (You can see edge grain and I doubt they veneered it.) Given that this part will never be seen, I'm surprised they didn't use less expensive plywood. While a single piece of 3/4" plywood might sag over the span, I think if they doubled it up it would do fine. There must be some production reason why it was more economical to use solid wood.

Enter a caption (optional)

Surprise #3: Now that I could see that the legs are actually shaped like sketch 2 above, it surprised me to see that they were actually one piece of solid wood, not some composite pieces that had been veneered. The telltale is the change in grain on sides of the legs perpendicular to each other. In the image below, you can see it's going from face grain on surface D to edge grain on surface E. (It was quite dark so I've lightened the photos artificially in an effort to reveal detail, sorry for the poor quality.)

Enter a caption (optional)

By crouching down a bit more I found the true giveaway that these legs were solid wood: At the undercut, you can see endgrain.

Enter a caption (optional)

Now I corrected myself: There's no way that these legs would be fabricated from a single piece of stock, as in sketch #2 above. To remove that much material, in that cleft on the inside of the legs, would be inefficient. So I looked for some proof that they were made in some other way, and I found it here:

Enter a caption (optional)

Now you can see a very faint line bisecting the leg:

Enter a caption (optional)

In other words each leg is made from two pieces of stock, an X-axis side and a Y-axis side, mitered lengthwise at a 45-degree angle and then joined at the miter (the dotted line in the sketch below).

Enter a caption (optional)

That makes much more sense.

In any case, the store is the New York outpost for Mud, an Australian handmade ceramics brand started by designer Shelley Simpson. I did a little research on them and they have stores all around the world, and for their displays they all use the Vitsoe 606 Universal Shelving System designed by Dieter Rams. In other words Simpson or whoever designed the store has a taste for high design.

The tables in question, different sizes but all the same design, show up in photos of other Mud stores around the world...

Enter a caption (optional)

...but I was unable to determine who the designer is. If anyone knows, please do comment.

[Update: Special thanks to Sarah, who has revealed that these are the Home Table by Barber & Ogersby. We subsequently wrote about the table here.]

If you live in New York and want to check the tables out, the store is on Crosby between Prince and Spring.

Enter a caption (optional)

o
1

Favorite This
Q
9

Comment

Comments

Tiby Csapo

7 years ago

Z

1Z

Reply

That awkward moment when the display furniture is more interesting than the product displayed on it...

!Report as spam
Long Pan

7 years ago

Z

Z

Reply

The corner braces could be modifications by the retailers to withstand the wear and tear in the retail environment

!Report as spam
Brian Hackett

7 years ago

Z

Z

Reply

Good work, detective!

!Report as spam
malcolm borrell

7 years ago

Z

Z

Reply

Nice article, love the design of the table, although its a shame about the clunky corner bracing with a bit more refinement the underside could be as beautiful as the top side.

!Report as spam
ian d

7 years ago

Z

Z

Reply

Or they could perhaps be Ebbe Gehl who has a whole range of this design: https://www.johnlewis.com/ebbe-gehl-for-john-lewis-mira-4-8-seater-extending-dining-table/p1569360

!Report as spam
- Sage Sitz
  
  ian d
  
  7 years ago
  
  Z
  
  Z
  
  Reply
  
  The Ebbe Gehl tables are a nice lower-cost version, but these tables are definitely the Barber & Osgerby Home Tables. DesignOffice, who consulted for Mud Australia's retail spaces list the Home Tables on their portfolio page for the Melbourne retail space (see here: http://designoffice.com.au/portfolio/mud-australia-melbourne/)
  
  I like the Ebbe Gehl tables, though! I like that the apron is broken up into sections, but I prefer the proportions of the apron vs tabletop on the Barber & Osgerby tables.
  
  !Report as spam
Sage Sitz

7 years ago

Z

Z

Reply

If I'm correct, these are the Home Tables by Barber & Osgerby. :) Aren't they lovely?

http://barberosgerby.com/projects/view/home-table/

!Report as spam
- Rain Noe
  
  Sage Sitz
  
  7 years ago
  
  Z
  
  Z
  
  Reply
  
  Thanks Sarah, you nailed it! Now updating the post.
  
  !Report as spam
Ben Loeffler

7 years ago

Z

Z

Reply

I used to work on Crosby and, for years, I'd marvel at that those tables. I have yet to find the designer.

!Report as spam