Project Title: Telescopic Table Location: Gloucestershire Wood Species: RIPPLED SYCAMORE
Project Description
The Project
The clients commissioned the architect Michael Gold to design a Library. The building is a single cylindrical room with a conical roof, and has huge double doors that open onto their riverside location. The walls are line with curved bookshelves and there is a log burner, with two chairs either side and a curved three seater sofa.
Their brief to me was to create a table that could maximise the use of their building. They wanted a table that could change in height which would act as a reading table in winter, with the burner lit and the sofa pushed against the shut doors, and a coffee table in summer with the doors flung open.
I came up with a telescopic design and in fact, the table resolves the brief of adjustable heights to suit a range of circumstances. It works with two separate rotations of the top. The first rotation allows the table to travel from coffee table height (35cm) to a midway side table height (55cm). Another turn takes the table up to dining height (75cm). Turned in the opposite direction the tabletop lowers as it spins and comes to rest at each height.
The table’s overall proportions relate to the diameter of this building, and its chunky, stepped aesthetic, to the detailing of the building.
The telescopic base, for weight and quality, is made in solid ripple sycamore segments, glued alternately for maximum stability. The top, for lightweight rigidity, is a sandwich construction with an aluminium honeycomb core, faced with MDF and edged with ripple sycamore segments. The final surface is a 3mm solid ripple sycamore thick cut veneer. The table is bleached to whiten it and finished with an extremely low lustre (5%) water based lacquer.
I designed a mechanism and had it manufactured specifically to solve the problem of raising and lowering the table. It overcomes the problems of operating the table easily by hand, and of operating it alone, and solves the problem of surface stability during travel and at rest. It also resolves the problem of locking the table at each height.
FURNITURE OWNER: PRIVATE
DESIGNER: RACHEL HUTCHINSON
MAKER: BERWYN PHILLIPS
DIMENSIONS: 150 X 75 X 150
