The Clip Table utilizes a connection method that is simple, intuitive and easy to use. Inspired by clamp lid and Weck canning jars from Crate and Barrel, the Clip Table is made of a system of parts that inform the user of how they should be assembled through their form language, with an emphasis on compression and tension.

Made from hand-routed birch plywood, turned tapered ash legs, and bent sheet steel, the design of this ready-to-assemble table can lend itself to both assembly and disassembly with ease, without the need for tools or hardware.

Design Team

Luke Gordon, designer

Lucas Vasilko, photographer

Clip Table Displaying its Inspiration The table features a speaker I made with a turned, knurled aluminum knob and a 'Crate and Barrel' clamp lid jar, one of the mechanisms that inspired this project, filled with loose leaf tea.

Process and Experimentation

Models and Iterations of Clamping Clips Explorations made out of bent aluminum sheet metal

The Clip Table's connection method was inspired by the design of canning and clip jars. Crate and Barrel sells several different jars with tension mechanisms that keeps its contents airtight and fresh. Why can't this method of compression and tension be applied to furniture? Once the red clips have been slipped into the routed grooves of the table top, all you need to do is compress the backs of the clips so that square shoulders of the three legs can fit into the bottom of the table. Once the legs's shoulders have been inserted into the square holes, you can uncompress the backs of the clips and they will lock the legs into place.

The focus of this project is an alternative option to the often very cumbersome process of assembling IKEA furniture. The flat pack furniture that prides itself on easy user assembly can lead to lots of difficulties and headaches, not to mention it incorporates the use of frustrating and cheap hardware. IKEA furniture also does not lend itself to disassembly. The Clip Table is the beginnings to a solution that eliminates the need for tools that many users don't have at home, providing an easy order of operations to put a piece of furniture together.