Hasta La Ideas

Polished marble meets turned wood in a new furniture line

Discovered alongside Anthony Dicken’s Tekio lighting at Clerkenwell Design Week was a beautiful range of tables by British furniture designer Bethan Gray. This capsule collection has been created by Gray in collaboration with furniture developer Thomas Turner and launched under their recently established G&T label.

The G&T collection grabbed our attention with its considered offering of five minimal but luxuriously detailed table designs. The first four are called “Carve” and include two low coffee tables—one square, one round—and two smaller side tables.

Created in combinations of white and black marble with oak and walnut bases, the designs match sleek Carrara marble tops with smoothly turned wooden legs. Bespoke marble options are also available upon request. The fourth, rather more lightweight version of the “Carve” side table, comes all in wood.

Another design, “Brogue“, combines the wooden base of “Carve” with a finely crafted leather top, detailed on its edge with what Gray calls “an intricate wax thread brogue finished with a hand stitched detail”—a technique that is recognizable from traditional shoe production.

Gray describes the designs as a “modern interpretation of a classic archetype,” based, as they are, on the traditional three-legged table found throughout her native Wales as a solution to uneven slate floors.

According to Gray, the motivation behind the G&T collection lies in “exclusively using intriguing and seductive combinations of natural materials, adding exciting and elegant detail to create timeless families of beautiful products.”

Bethan Gray and Thomas Turner got to know each other while working together at Habitat. Having both left that well known British design brand a few years ago to forge their own paths, they have teamed up again to make contemporary furniture that they predict will become “future heirlooms.”

The tables are available from G&T with pricing available upon request.

Milan 2012: Stoke Newington designers Studio Vit showed these glass lamps with marble cuffs as part of Salone Satellite at the Salone Internazionale del Mobile this month.

Referencing the look of incandescent light bulbs, the Marble Lights combine blown glass spheres with marble cylinders to create table, floor and pendant lights, plus floor weights that can be looped over a flex to secure the pendants.

Back in London Studio Vit are based close to Dezeen’s own office on Sanford Terrace in Stoke Newington. We interviewed them for Dezeen Platform in the autumn:

Watch this movie on Dezeen Screen »

See our story about their 11 Boxes project presented at Dezeen Platform here.

The Salone Internazionale del Mobile took place from 17 to 22 April. See all our stories about Milan 2012 here, plus photos on Facebook and Pinterest.

The information below is from Studio Vit:

Marble lights is a collection in marble and glass.

Originating from an archetypal bulb and socket, it consists of glass spheres and cylindrical marble lamp holders in various sizes which can be freely combined.

Marble lights include table, floor and pendant lights, as well as three floor weights which can be used as counterweights to the suspended lights.

The aim of the collection is to create a product that is simple yet refined and generates a juxtaposition of volumes, materials and weights.

Key:

Blue = designers
Red = architects
Yellow = brands

See a larger version of this map

Designed in Hackney is a Dezeen initiative to showcase world-class architecture and design created in the borough, which is one of the five host boroughs for the London 2012 Olympic Games as well as being home to Dezeen’s offices. We’ll publish buildings, interiors and objects that have been designed in Hackney each day until the games this summer.

More information and details of how to get involved can be found at www.designedinhackney.com.

These polished marble blocks by Milanese designer Emanuele Pizzolorusso can be arranged on your desk to make miniature monuments.

The set is made up of three variants of a 100x100x100mm Carrara marble block.

Some blocks have grooves or holes punched into them like doors or windows and others have an edge that is completely rounded.

We’ve already published some projects by Emanuele Pizzolorusso including a story about crumpled city maps included in the Dezeen Book of Ideas and a waste paper basket made of recycled paper.

Here’s a little more information from the designer:

α, β, γ.  (Alpha, Beta, Gamma.)

Carrara-marble blocks

Alpha Beta Gamma is a set of 3 blocks; simply cut, substantial in mass and satisfying to touch.

Arrange them in infinite ways to create forms that are at once unique and universal.

Your own sanctuary may be built from these harmonious blocks, designed to give rise to the largest possible number of combinations…

A limited edition set can be purchased through pre-order.

You can also download technical drawings to make your own under the Creative Commons Licence BY-NC-ND. It means you are free to reproduce it, but not for commercial purposes.

Designer Paolo Ulian’s humble use of marble in a series of sculptural furniture

Italy’s Le Fablier, known for its impeccably-crafted classic wood furniture, in recent years has worked with a host of innovative designers to show how traditional style can translate in the future. In 2010 they collaborated with Gaetano Pesce on a series of architectural sculptures and now they’ve tapped Paolo Ulian to demonstrate his talents using marble.

A natural fit for the project, Ulian was born in the Tuscan town of Carrara, the capital of sculptural white marble. Deciding to use medium quality marble, he explains, “I think it’s even better than what’s considered to be the first choice: it’s more robust and humble, perfect for my projects.”

Ulian’s limited collection consists of bookshelves and tables, all of which were designed and produced in order to minimize or totally eliminate waste. “Marble is a sacred material, it will not last forever, so I have a deep respect for this material,” he told us. Sustainability and irony are present in the entire line, but a real standout, the “Numerica” bookcase, subtly reproduces Roman numerals in standard marble tiles.