Zelouf and Bell’s Gazelle desk manages to be both fun and distinguished  masculine and feminine all that the same time. The main body of the desk is of quarter sawn and oiled oak, which gives it great texture and strength. The rest is of ebonised walnut legs and wenge on the pulls. Not all woods have the same qualities or behaves in the same way, so it takes some quite serious expertise to play the different woods well. Like with good cooking, the results of this remain largely unseen at a glance, but can begin to be appreciated as you get close up. It is really over time, as it ages well, that is true value can be understood.

One of those close up details that’s pretty rock and roll has to be the hematite pulls, “like nipple rings,” Zelouf and Bell said. These close up details are always a charming discovery with their work. My favorite detail appears on all their work, it’s the way they sign their mark in inlaid polished aluminium, the stamp of style.

Norm Architects from Denmark were inspired by maritime objects when designing the raft table which is constructed of welded steel and sandblasted oak. Yet when ever I saw a publicity photo for it I thought it more akin to sleek podish ifurniture than something found attached to a buoy. But then, when I saw this table  at &tradition last week, I was strongly reminded of the garden tools that I knew as a kid. Weather warn darkened wood and robust steel at the intersections, something altogether more warm and homely that will age well. I’m convinced that this three legs at two ends table will be one of those seminal collectible design icons in the future, but who cares if it isn’t, it’s still a brilliant table.

Erwan Boulloud studied at the reputed Ecole Boulle in Paris, and for the last ten years he has been producing limited series and one off pieces in his workshop in Pantin, to the north of the city. He is fascinated with movement and time, so his work appears to be an evolving situation that was frozen in a moment.

The Grande Graine table shows his skill as a cabinet maker and blacksmith in the one piece. The steel inclusions are constructed like clamps above and below the 12 edged tabletop, that terminate in sort of abstract grains, (grand graine means large seed in french).  The use of expressive geometry, with handcrafting in an industrial spirit, harks back to the art deco and the arts and crafts movements in the first part of the last century.

At 230cm by 174cm I’d unfortunately never fit it into my apartment, but I would very much love to see how the eventual owner chooses to set the table for a dinner, the steel bars and changing symmetry are an interesting terrain for the architecture of table-ware.

Designed by  Jocelyn Deris for La Corbeille, the steel legs of this table are woven through the the oak table top like straps, hence its name in French, Sangle, which means Strap. Deris has a design style where there is often one element treated as a band that wraps around another element, in this case it is these strap legs. One of the advantages of these flat steel bars running across the table-top is to prevent it from bowing. The original design is an oval, but it now exist in circular and rectangular form.

Heals on the Tottenham court road in London, is the furniture store where students of architecture go to salavate over various designer goodies. Yet the only furniture that you’re actually likely to use while in Heals is in the Oliver Peyton Restaurant Meals. A few years ago he hired the hip architecural firm FAT,(fashion architecture taste), to design it. Fat’s designs are concerned with real emotions, memory, images, politics , language and place , rather than prevailing diktats of modernist abstraction.

These Trompe l’oeil tables are a careful balance of a language of domestic simplicity and the feel of high quality event. The table-cloth table-top is mdf with a white colour core formica laminate, so there are no black edges at the corners of the formica and it would still looks good even if it were chipped. This sits on a supporting frame that is held off the ground by solid oak legs.

They are quite at home in the restaurant’s oak cut-out set of a garden tea-time, in the centre of London.

The architect Jean Nouvel has designed a table that is sold in different lengths starting from 4 meters. It’s only 85cm wide which makes it more intimate and appear proportionately longer. Produced in Italy by Unifor the oak and hornbeam laminated table-top hides an internal structure keeping it lines simple. This table was shown in 2011 in the Gagosian Gallery, a lofty place for a table who’s vocation is to be everyday everyday and utilitarian.

There is nothing more convivial than a round table, which puts everyone in a circle and on an even pegging. The only problem is you need to always have  more or less the same amount of people and it can be tricky to enter into standard sized living spaces, but if you can manage it, it’s well worth it.

The base is available in black or white powder coated steel, and the table-top in oak or walnut. I’m madly in love with the black base in walnut that you see in the photos. As you walk around the table you can practically feel the  spiralling swish movement of the steel blades. When you sit down to the table the deep pattern of the walnut continues the feeling of movement in a rich stately way.

Designed by  Benoît Deneufbourg and produced by Interni Edition, for me this is a future heirloom piece.

I regret not having a photo of this Simply Solid oak table from a distance, it is stunning. First off at 270cm x 110 it’s an impressive size. The pale deep table top seems to float above the black legs that curve down away from it, a very modernist look.  But these tables are far from the industrial production so loved of the modernists, it is made over many weeks by master craftsmen in a Belgian workshop. It would fit in perfectly anywhere that wants to feel simple and contemporary yet textured and warm rather than completely bare.

The traditional joinery is accentuated as the leg joints are not dissimulated but made obvious and the grooves of the large oak grain run across the joint. The texture of the grain on the table top is confounded with the lined ridge texture created by two days of buffing, which was incidentally such heavy going that it  broke one power-tool.  This bumpy texture however is silky smooth to the touch thanks to it’s ultimate sanding and liming. This is the first of its series and it needs to be specifically ordered. It is available in three colours and three lengths, in fact it is so recent that it has not yet appeared on their web site.