Tables primarily serve a functional purpose, providing a horizontal surface to place things. Considering the space they occupy, it’s only fair that they should also have some aesthetic value, adding to the ambiance of a room instead of sticking out like a sore thumb. Unfortunately, not all designs balance form and function equally, with one aspect getting a heavier focus than the other. Some might be extremely beautiful but have little room for use as an actual table, while others try to get too smart with features at the expense of a pleasing appearance. Fortunately, we have plenty of inspiration around us to help shape our designs, and this family of odd-looking tables takes a few pages from Mother Nature’s book to create pieces that offer both practical utility as well as visual interest, bringing any living space to life.
Designer: Superlife
Most tabletops come in conventional shapes such as rectangles, squares, circles, or ellipses. These, after all, are the most space-efficient shapes around, maximizing the area that you can use to lay down objects like laptops, books, or cups. They’re probably also the most mundane shapes you’ve ever laid eyes on, and they are totally dependent on the rest of the table’s composition or materials to pique your interest. The Flow family of tables bucks that trend and presents a table that almost looks impractical but is actually quite flexible in its functionality, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that it pulls off this feat by learning from organic things designed by nature itself.
As the name somewhat implies, these tables are inspired by naturally occurring bodies of water. Whether they’re puddles or lakes, water doesn’t appear as a perfect circle or rectangle, not unless you put them in artificial containers. The amorphous and almost random shape that water comes in evokes a sense of fluidity, even while at rest. It’s almost the perfect metaphor for tables that become centers of activity even as they act as resting places for your stuff.
Flow, however, is also inspired by cells that take similarly undefined shapes. Each table in the collection also has different heights to add to its unique character. And just like cells, these distinct pieces can function independently or merge into one to provide a larger canvas to arrange objects. The dynamic shapes of the tables might even inspire you to inject some life into your room, just like how cells are the building blocks of organic life.
Whether alone or connected, the fluid shapes of the Flow tables create an interesting ambiance that is both lively and calm, just like water. The tables are both pieces of structural art as well as flexible furniture that provide a bold visual impact, blending form and function in harmony just as things in nature usually do.
