M-001

"A symbiotic relationship between rigid and elegant, solid and fragile." It takes a certain boldness to draw out the elegance of this table.

The tension in this table arises from the entanglement of different elements. The steel grid and the disks reveal its robust character, whereas the slender legs and tension cables provide a sensual touch.

This was a study of how to make a table with the thinnest possible legs. The structural concept is based on how a cable bridge works, but inverted. A cable bridge needs big and strong columns - or legs - between which a thin slab hangs with tension cables to make the span. In the design of this table, however, the slab - or the thick crisscrossing steel grid - has to be strong enough to handle the pull of the tension cables.

Lowering the discs tightens the cables and by calculating their correct position the legs are able to be as thin as they are. With the discs in this position, the lower part of the legs can now handle the lateral and vertical loads, whereby the part above the discs is affected only by the vertical load. The lateral forces exerted on this part of the legs are passed through the cables to the strong steel grid carrying the glass

At the outset of this design, the table was conceived as an architectural project, since it can also serve on a larger scale as a covered square. This table, then, is the outcome of an investigation into how something rigid and solid can rely on something gentle and fragile, which results in a perfectly balanced harmony.

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