This New Table Collection Shows the Richness of Natural Stone

Architects and designers around the world turn to the Dutch stone purveyor SolidNature to realize custom projects. OMA requested a pink-onyx-clad elevator for Fondazione Prada in Milan; Sabine Marcelis created travertine-and-glass chairs. Yet as business has grown, so has its inventory of offcuts. The company asked Budde, a design studio in Cologne, Germany, to explore their potential. Founders Johannes Budde and Meike Papenfuss conceived Five x Seven: five tables (a console plus coffee and side tables) made from seven types of stone. For each piece, they combined slabs of marble, onyx, granite, and travertine, then carved a slim arch into all four sides. Layered together like sedimentary rock, the colorful stones form muted stripes of cream, pink, green, and gray, and look different from every angle. It’s a limited edition, but custom pieces are also available. Through Rossana Orlandi Gallery.

BZIPPY Introduces Tables, Planters, and Vases With a Twist

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Radnor’s ‘Crafted by Nature’ Exhibit Spotlights Complex Materiality

It was a big spring for Radnor company founder Susan Clark, who celebrated new gallery programming at her showroom on Manhattan’s Upper East Side with the curated show “Crafted by Nature.” The exhibition spotlighted a bevy of one-off and extremely limited-edition products by various makers—including Clark herself. She wielded her design prowess to full effect in manifesting a unique coffee table carved from a solid core of Italian Siena marble in a manner that makes it appear at once luminous and substantial: A monolithic slab top is held aloft by a textured base bearing the imprint of drilling marks. She used the same marble to craft a limited-edition series of three smaller curve-base side tables. The pieces, collectively dubbed Core, highlight the complexity of Mother Earth’s materiality, and the technical expertise required to design and fabricate such deceptively simple forms.

10 Questions With… Thabisa Mjo

It’s 6 p.m. in Lagos, Nigeria, on a Tuesday when Thabisa Mjo and I get on a call. Her voice, thick with a South African accent, is comforting. We talk about the GMT and how Johannesburg is one hour apart from Lagos, as well as the joy that grips us. Mjo, a multifaceted creative, has spent years crafting her many peculiar designs and simultaneously loving the sense of tranquility they bring to people. She founded her brand Mash.T in 2015. Ever since, she’s been collaborating with local artisans to craft and embed South African stories into lighting collections, ceramic plates, and furniture.

What makes Mjo a force is the intentionality she wields in her work—she manages to attach immense emotion to the aesthetics and forms she creates in a way that defines how therapeutic they are in gaze. She wants people to feel and, in turn, to emphasize with the socio-constructivity of African designs in a way that is “whimsical, nostalgic, fun, delightful and pretty,” she says.

Interior Design talks with the designer about her career, collaborations, and storytelling.

African Narratives: Behind Thabisa Mjo’s Designs

Interior Design: Describe your experiences and journey as a designer.

Thabisa Mjo: I launched the business back in 2013, but doing product design only started in 2015. In the first two years, I was trying to discover what I did best, who would be my customer and what I would do for them. It was at the end of 2015 or early 2016 that I transitioned into product design when I got the sweet spot of what my purpose was. I called it an interior design studio because I had just graduated from design school. I was so young and clear on what my value proposition was. The more time I spent trying to build a portfolio and a name for myself, amassing clients, it became clearer to me that I was passionate about storytelling and I wanted to nurture that attribute by using designs as a medium to tell those stories. So first, I had to come to terms with not becoming an interior designer and pursued my career as a  product designer.

ID: What sparked your plight to be a designer?

TM: I actually graduated from film school where I majored in production design which is basically designing and building sets for television shows and advertisements. After working in the TV and film industry for a little while, it occurred to me that I needed to create spaces that people in the real world can interact with because creating spaces for TV is a very short term thing, we shoot the movie and TV show and it’s over—people in the real world don’t interact with these spaces, so I wanted to make things that can live with people or things people can live in. Back in school I was in love with history. I remember spending so much time in the library as a kid reading books and escaping into a fantasy world where my imagination was so vivid. So when I started working, I realized I was going to tell stories using design as my tool to do that.

ID: Your work explores the connectivity of South Africa’s past and current craftsmanship. Why was that important to you?

TM: My desire isn’t just limited to craftsmanship in South Africa, it stretches across the continent. I only have access to craftsmanship existing here in South Africa but I’m interested in African craftsmanship in general. In building my design studio, I had this notion that networking means connecting with people already established in the decision-making positions. As I went along with my journey, I realized I should be networking with people because they are invested in helping me make progress, just as I would help them make progress too. One of the ways we follow this principle at Mash.T  is by doing collaborations with other designers and crafters that share the same values with us, which is about taking traditional craft, repackaging it, working with crafters to challenge them to use their age old techniques, passed from generation to generation, in new ways to help us create a new design aesthetics that speak to time we live in. That is what has informed my decision to collaborate with crafters such as the Zulu basket weavers. The incredible bead-makers and weavers I work with use the skills passed down to them to create economic opportunities for themselves. I partner up with them to present these craft skills in contemporary ways, helping us to keep the craft alive and create a new design language that tells stories that makes us feel connected.

ID: What predominantly shapes your design interest?

TM: Primarily, we make lights. That’s the thing Mash.T started off with back in 2015. My first product was the Tutu lights, which was voted the most beautiful object in South Africa in 2018 and in 2021, it was acquired by the museum of decorative arts in France into their permanent collection. However, when Covid-19 happened, I was caught off-guard because my primary target market had been B2B, so a lot of commercial developments stopped. I was shocked, so it came to me as an urgency to make something that is easy for a consumer to buy—it can’t be too big and sculptural, like our lights are. It needed to be small and fit in an average size home. In South Africa, a lot of young people live in flat apartments, so they don’t have grand spaces. They don’t usually have money to spend on this piece so I thought about what I could do. But I was interested in designing something that we could make in the factory at a more competitive price so people can purchase it for their homes. That’s when we introduced the bright side table and the flute table made of terrazzo. We designed small lights for desks. With the stories that we have been telling, it has gotten a lot of people invested in what we want to build. I found that people really wanted a piece of that but I wasn’t answering their desire to be a part of the Mash.T because I was so focused on selling to offices and commercial audiences.

ID: Which designer inspires you most?

TM: I love Kelly Wearstler, I love that her work is so unapologetic and her mixture of texture, color and proportion is unique, she’s not afraid of scale. I also love Ghanaian architect David Adjaye. Whenever I see his building, I can see his inspiration from vernacular architecture but he does it in such a way that isn’t outdated, something so clever. I love Nifemi Marcus-Bello, the way he responds to his environment which is so unique. My old time favorite is Peter Mabeo. He is very good, he did a collaboration last year with Fendi for Art Basel and it was absolutely incredible. I also love Diébédo Francis Kéré, I watched a TED Talk and the way he spoke about his work gave me confidence and got me thinking of how I could speak about my own work in a way that is articulate and leaves people feeling something. I love how raw his works are, he uses what people have available around them to build incredible schools in Burkina Faso. He makes design accessible and that what design is, it’s supposed to make our lives easier.

ID: Your work seems to communicate to the viewer. Are you a lover of forms and textures?

TM: Yes—I won’t even say texture, I think it’s secondary. It’s shape—I love a beautiful form and I think that when you have a beautiful form, it doesn’t matter what color or texture or material you use. There are things I have designed at Mash.T, such as the bright side table, that would not translate the way it was if it was woven in that grasp. People are so moved by shape.

ID: What is the biggest compliment you’ve received as a designer?

TM: My mother told me this and I will quote it exactly. “When I was growing up, my own mother was a crafter, she use to do a lot of weaving and I cannot believe that after all these many years later, you are doing the same thing with a very great level because we cannot imagine that all these things we took for granted would be seen with so value.” And so that moved me so much. I was actually speaking to a client of mine while doing research and she wanted to find out from repeat customers why they kept buying from Mash.T and the consensus was beautiful. “Working with a team is easy, you guys are reliable and very informative of what you do, it was so convenient and easy to work with you guys,” [shared one customer]. That was a source of pride because there are a lot of beautiful things in life and there are a lot of incredible designers who are so ridiculously talented and one cannot always be “competing” on who makes the prettiest things. I’m so glad that I add depth and I make it easier for my clients to pick us.

ID: Last year, along with 7 other South African designers, you collaborated with the American Hardwood Export Council (AHEC). What was that like?

TM: I loved and enjoyed the collaboration because they had a passion for material for American oak and also had an approach to sustainability, which is why I wanted to work with them. Also, I have never really worked with wood though we got one or two pieces we have done with wood, but we never had this type of skill set that was available to us. We at Mash.T were given access to incredible furniture makers who specialized in working with oak and basically worked with them to create our imagination.

ID: The art of measuring was such a beautiful product, I love that you weaponized woods to make references to a floating table cloth. What was it like creating it and what inspired it?

ID: What’s your most recent work?

TM: It’s called the Noodle Sofa. It’s really our first piece of furniture. We call it the noodle because it mimics noodles. It feels so modern and contemporary but its proportions are generous, wide and curved, making it inviting. We at Mash.T are very conscious of not making alienating products, so we want people to envision themselves living with those pieces in their spaces, I want them to see themselves snacking and watching Netflix. Also, it’s a classic beautiful silhouette that I think would be one of those things that even in 50 years from now, would still be an iconic piece. It’s one the most popular items on our website now, so I’m really excited about the noodle sofa potential.

8 New Works by Luam Melake are on Display in New York

All are shaped from lightweight upholstery foam, so users can easily move them as needed, that is coated in layers of shiny, stabilizing urethane; materials research is another focus of Melake’s practice. In fact, she weaves other industrial elements into large-scale tapestries, too. She’s currently working on her biggest yet—12 feet high—for the lobby of the new AC Hotel San Rafael in California.

A Closer Look at an Imaginative, Multi-Use Piece by Virgil Abloh and Cassina

The multidisciplinary work of Illinois-born fashion designer and cultural force Virgil Abloh is currently on view at the Brooklyn Museum, after the groundbreaking exhibition premiered at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. Not on display, however, is his collaboration with Cassina, Modular Imagination.

Abloh, who earned a master’s degree in architecture, completed the object just before his untimely death last year. Whether used as a bench, a pouf, a table, or something else, the unit—upholstered in painted elastomer-coated polyurethane—can function to connect and unite a room. Dubbed a “building block” by the late designer, Modular Imagination is stackable via connecting pegs (in jaunty orange powder-coat). The 18-inch-tall block is available in two lengths: 18 or 30½ inches. Bas reliefs on each surface spell out Cassina-Abloh.

8 Imaginative Home Accessories and Furnishings by Top Designers

Jean-Baptiste Anotin gives a new meaning to “car seat,” and one-of-a-kind customizable light fixtures play with primary colors. Ring in the new year with these inventive home accessories and furnishings by top designers, including bowls inspired by Isamu Noguchi’s ashtray series.

8 Home Decor Accessories 

Ontwerp Onbekend by Vera Meijwaard and Steven Visser of Visser & Meijwaard

Investigations into corrugated sheet materials by the cofounders of the Dutch studio sparked a colorful series of blown-glass vases, their juicy rippled forms the result of being shaped in modular molds.

Table Basse by Maxime Lis of Manip

Mono-materiality and user interaction are the concepts that drove the Paris designer’s elemental table, created from a single scored sheet of anodized aluminum that ships flat for the recipient to bend into 3-D form.

Shou Sugi Ban by Anna Aristova and Roza Gazarian of A Space

An ashtray series by Isamu Noguchi that played with positive and negative space inspired the New York designers’ limited-edition bowls, hand-carved from salvaged Lebanese cedar and treated to the titular Japanese charring treatment.

Ert by Guglielmo Giagnotti and Patrizio Gola of Studioutte

The chair, in gloss-lacquered plywood, by the Milanese talents, is a tribute to the De Stijl movement and produced in a limited edition, its assertive geometric silhouette fabri­cated from seven conjoined planks.

No Seat Belt Required by Jean-Baptiste Anotin of Waiting For Ideas

A rectilinear aluminum base curiously supports a curvaceous chrome-painted seat (that looks machined but is in fact handmade) in the designer’s tribute to the Paris car shop his great-grandfather founded.

Loop by Paula Terra Bosch of Köllen Design

The young Spaniard leveraged a Kickstarter campaign to produce her adjustable floor- or wall-mounted coatrack, its rotating wood units and interstitial metal hooks twisting independently of one another.

Glyph by Kwangho Lee for Hem

The South Korean designer joins the brand’s expanding inter­national lineup, proffering this flexible side table that can stand upright or on its side; originally crafted of bronze, it’s now produced in sturdy powder-coated sheet steel.

Modular Ceramic Lamps by Adélie Ducasse of Adélie Ducasse Lighting

Customize color and form to create a one-of-a-kind sculptural light fixture, handmade in Italy to order (in under 6 weeks) or go with the Paris artist’s suggested shapes and pre­ferred primary palette.

Kiki Goti Unveils Her Latest Collection of Colorful Furniture, Lighting, and Accessories

Standard architectural forms like columns and capitals shape-shift to eye-popping furniture, lighting, and accessories in the hands of the Greek architect and educator Kiki Goti. Goti’s hyper-sensorial designs—what she calls “domestic supergraphics”—begin as collages before prototyping refines the construction. “The material and its performance drive the form,” she says.

Her U+II collection consists of a mirror, side table, and double-arm lamp, and her newly launched I+UU series includes a floor lamp and sconces. They are all made of hard acrylic laminated to form black-and-white stripes, and squishy foam that’s sealed, then painted with colorful lines. (“The contrast creates a moment of visual and haptic tension,” she explains.) The Steel Stripes chair is similar but applies Goti’s beloved lines to industrial materials: painted steel sheet and U-beams. Crafted in her Brooklyn, New York, studio, all pieces are available within a project-friendly two- to six-week lead time.

A Modern Side Table With a Planetary Pop

Inspired by the way in which astronomers measure the distance between celestial bodies, Parallax, a side table by Los Angeles creative Elyse Graham, pairs walnut, maple, or ebony (not shown) with a carved sphere similar to the orbs that first put her on the design map.

The colorful globe is made of her own MetaMaterial, a resin composite marked by unique, non-repeating patterns. The marbled and graphically charged shapes decorating these “planets” resemble galaxies-in-miniature, a groovy intervention in the other­wise straightforward and refined timber structure.

These Lucky Side Tables are Made from Sustainable Materials