Stephane Quatresous’s designs have that found-in-a-factory feel. His brand name is Atelier154 and their loft style showroom can be found on rue Oberkampf, (I’ll let you guess the number on the street). This is in the trendy east Paris neighbourhood of Menilmontant. It’s called industrial furniture, not that the groovy homes and businesses that can afford these pieces will see any more industry activity than the occasional power drill to hang a picture. Prices of recuperated industrial furniture have hiked up so much with their growing popularity that making new ones now makes sense. This wheeled steel table, that remind me of market barrows, comes in different lengths, widths, colours and finishes. So it’s far more one-off than the genuine factory stuff.

366cm x 100m of a thin sandwich, this Serra&Delaroche prototype  is impressive. The sandwich panel is 3mm of Porcelanic, (this is what the guy called the ceramic layer), 0.5mm of aluminium and a variable thickness of Bakelite in the centre. It is first cooked in an oven, then compacted in a roller and finally cut. It can go outside but it would need a very stable flat ground.

Since Serra&Delaroche were daring enough to design this paper thin €9000 table, I felt that I should be at least daring enough to defy the security guard  who didn’t want me taking photos.

I first noticed this table because two of the hip young things from Youcaïdi were dancing beside it, at the Maison&Objet trade fair in Paris. This fun young interior design team from Switzerland have really expressed themselves in this table.

It was first designed as a gift for a man who has a workshop in the same industrial park as them in Fribourg . He used to lend them his laser cutting machine that he seldomly used. To thank him they made him the first example of the ex table.

All the parts are made up of stratified laser cut birch.You can feel the quality and precision when you move your hands over it. The legs come through the table top and make an X pattern on the surface (hence the name) and there are many faceted edges. Frankly this is quite a fantastic present.

I’m such a fan of these table people created by Lila. She lives in Hamburg with her brother, her sister and her uber creative parents, Barbie Hein and Seth Turner. She must love when her family have get-togethers  to be able to charm these table characters out of an ordinary table setting to join them for their meal.