I found this transformed water-tank last-year, in the flea market in Saint Ouen, on the northern tip of Paris. It was discovered in a disused factory  in the North of France, had it’s steel side cut out, then it was up-turned to create this fantastic riveted table. Yours for a mere €3700. Now that may seem excessive for a “found” object, but when you compare it with vintage, designer tables and one-off pieces, or calculate up all the costs, it is kind of price that they can demand.

This table is inspired by the work of Richard Neutra, a modernist architect whose buildings constantly related to the outdoors. But perhaps there is another style reference going on here, that could lead this to be called the iTable ?

Designed by the architect Vincent Van Duysen for Tribù, its seamless quality is due to the use of injection molded aluminium which is lacquered in black or white, and topped off by a matt glass table-top in the same colour or in black granite. At 220cm long it’s a sizable table and, although it’s an outdoor table, there are not may people in Paris with the outdoor space that it needs. Not to worry though, it’s so finely finished that it’s quite at home indoors.

Camping should be a civilised pursuit, and this bamboo, aluminium and steel tables certainly make it so. Made by the Japanese company snow peak these table have the hallmarks of contemporary Japanese design, a respect for the nature of materials, an apparent simplicity and attention to detail. There is a definite feel of luxury to the way they fit in their bag, open easily and click into place. There should be one in the trunk of ever four wheel drive.

The PicNYC table by the architect Haiko Cornelissen is currently an Internet sensation so how could architectstables not post about it. It reminds me of the time that I had a glass of retsina wine for the first (and last) time and was desperately searching for a plant to spill it into, but there was none. If I had been sitting at this table there would never have been an issue.

If this Déjeuner sur l’Herbe were mine I would grow a camomile lawn on it and tend to it daily with nail scissors. In summer I would open the windows and stretch out on it for a little nap. 

Living in Paris I felt that I needed to create a category for café tables, it is after all what this city is built on. Café tables are designed to be nippy little things, to niche into odd shaped small interiors or to huddle alongside busy thoroughfares.

But some Parisian thoroughfares can just about squeeze in a standard sized café table with barely a centimeter left for the passers by,who are frankly essential to the whole watching-the-world-go-by experience.

This café on the rue de Ruisseau is just such a place. Micro tables where the table-top has been trimmed down to be  no larger than the foot of the table is their neat little solution,  and it’s is about as tiny as you can get before turning to writing chairs.

Kettal has the most beautiful collection of garden furniture with a non definable retro feel. The Viegues range uses contemporary materials and techniques without a high-tech coldness, but with the warmth of multiple textures.

 This particular number hides a space-age secret. It has an aluminum honeycomb core. Making it possible for ordinary people to lift it.
The legs that do lift it come in teak or aluminium. I love all the aluminium technology designs that I’m seeing at the moment,(like last weeks sandwich panel) but I do prefere this table’s teak version. I’m rather tempted to play with some aluminium foil and whip myself up some little tables.

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.

Kiki Ęca Silva, her husband Arie Pos and their daughter Emma live on a Quinta (a small Portuguese farm), in Cete, Northern Portugal. In the 1950′s Kiki’s grandfather ordered some slate from Valongo (a slate mining area in northern Portugal), to build a new water tank. It was only after delivery that they realized that a slate water tank would be far too heavy for the rafters. So three of these great slabs were used to make garden tables instead. The slate was placed on simple steel frames and each leg was placed on a stone, in some cases attached to it. Time has remodeled each table a little differently, rustier legs or less shattered edges, depending on where it stands and how it’s used.

A few years ago they wanted a larger table for group gatherings that was less weather worn and brittle than the existing tables. So Kiki’s brother Luis Ęca Silva, an architect, designed a new 250x100cm slate table. The oil treated slate table-top is supported by steel angle profiles. They form square arches along each edge, stopping just short of the corners .The corners also have an angle profile, which join the arched profiles on each side, creating a beautiful composite leg.(good thing there’s a photo!)

The stripe bordered blue tablecloth is a delightful complementary echo of the table legs. I also love that a potting table figures right along side the new dinner table. The colours and textures of this new table have a similar garden camouflage feel to the old tables. Even the metal is painted in the same shade of green, but without the rust spots.Thankfully these camouflage qualities evaporate when the cakes come out to bloom!

A few months ago I helped my father throw out a misshapen wooden garden table that had seen too much weather and too little protection. Too bulky to be moved for storage indoors it was in a hurry to rot back into the ecosystem, as if discontent with the form that humans gave it.  Had it been a metal garden table, it would allow itself a little corrosion at the edges to be polite to it’s surroundings, but it’s true to it’s nature it would hold it’s human given shape.

I instantly loved this Filaciel  folding and extending metal garden table at the “Maison et Objet” exhibition in January. It reminded me of the traditional tables in Parisian parks but, dare I say it, this one is finer. Beautifully finished in a range of powder coated matt colours, it is particularly resistant to weathering . Manufactured in Spain, there is no clumpy welding and the mechanism for extending the table is small, robust and fluid. The thin expanse of table-top stays flat as it  is rigidified by its drop-down edges. Long openings lighten it and prevent puddles forming.

This tables also has a brilliant patented gadget. It has legs, that upon pulling a small knob, simply fold away. The Filaciel table really makes me miss having a garden, so maybe for the next exhibition the Filaciel people could perhaps come up with a fold away garden for Parisians.