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Almost ten years ago I used to visit an abandoned clothing factory of my city, the brand named Karting was famous at some point the in 70s, especially after Brigitte Bardot wore one of their pants. The factory was big and like many others full of asbetos so, when hype fade away the factory was abandoned for decades. I used to go there and reclaimed tons of material, industrial machines, office furniture, patterns and fabric.
Before the demolition of the building I also took the handrails; three meters long pieces of exotique wood, sapele I presume. These pieces of wood have been laying in my parents garden for a decade and that's how the project started. When the client asked me to design a coffee table, I had the idea of using these. Due to their dark shade, I felt like balancing it out with a lighter wood. It would create a stipes pattern, something pop I thought, like some of Fala's house flooring or an Ettore Sottssas cupboard. Finally the client was not convinced by the grain of the sapele and its darkness so I proposed to use the darkest wood one can fin out here; walnut. Assembling walnut planks with loose ash tongues seemed the most efficient and reminded me of Charlotte Perriand tables proudly showing the joinery at the end of the table top. I decided to push the pride a bit further and opted for a cross shaped tongue, so that the pattern shows up on each side of the table top. The rest of the design consists of finding the right proportions and the structure to assemble it. To accommodate the seasonal movement of the wood I opted for two separate sets of legs. Each set is linked lengthwise by a stretcher which supports a sliding dovetail apron in the middle of the table top. Since the apron is friction fitted, it prevents the warping of the table top and allows it to capture and release moisture. The legs and the stretches are assembled using glued split tenons. MATCH LOW TABLE
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