‘The table has a depth—it becomes alive.’ An interview with Konstantin Grcic
‘Touch is a sense that’s often overlooked.’ An interview with Sebastian Wrong
“Touch is a sense that’s often overlooked at the expense of the visual when it comes to design—everyone who sees this table touches it.” Sebastian Wrong, designer
It all began with a single English Oak. Nearly two years ago, a large specimen fell in a violent storm on the farm where Sebastian Wrong grew up, a sprawling plot of land belonging to his family for nearly four generations. Sensing its potential, Wrong decided that it should be saved from a fate of firewood. A tree surgeon processed the Oak on site; the freshly cut planks were then stored in the barn. “This is quite common for me,” Wrong says. “I might hoard something, and think about it for quite a long time without seeing any resolution or conclusion. Deep inside I’ve got confidence that the stars will align at a later date to determine its destiny.”
Fate came in the form of the Wrong Shop; his new venture’s emphasis on small batch production offered the ideal opportunity to utilize the timber. Wrong sussed out the table’s shape suitable for an “odd and awkward” corner space with one-to-one scale foam-core models in his studio—a “little hole” in East London he’s been working in for over a decade. “It’s not a place to present ideas; it’s an extension of my brain,” he explains. Since settling in, the surrounding neighborhood itself has seen something of a renaissance. “It was always a scruffy afterthought which has evolved into a global creative hub—a self-sustaining microclimate of specialists who are all interconnected.” Wrong called upon two of these local artisans to take the table from concept to completion.
Lars Frideen is a Swedish emigré and self-taught designer and carpenter who worked with Wrong on a handful of previous projects. Their easygoing, intuitive collaborations made him the ideal candidate to construct the table’s base, the dearness of which served as an inspiration. “I’ve always been interested in solving problems—I guess that’s what makes me tick, so to speak,” Frideen says. “All the four-by-fours arrived from the farm a little warped and a bit bent—we wanted to keep that rawness, while making sure we used the wood efficiently without having to machine away half of it.” Four prototypes were made before finalizing the design, which, due to the unique nature of the Oak, will ultimately vary with every table. “There’s no way to make an assortment of feet and hope that they fit on the next columns,” he says. “Each table will have slightly different dimensions and angles.”
The base was then delivered from Frideen to Phil Brown, a man of many talents and few words. Brown established himself as a sculptor before setting up Other People’s Sculpture, a Hackney workshop where he helps clients realize their own artistic intentions. Wrong envisioned a poured rubber top for the table, and brought Brown a few full-sized templates and an oxide-red chemistry bung for reference. From those, Brown built a custom silicone surround for the mold—chosen so the polyurethane wouldn’t stick—and made “a small sample in an ice cube tray to get the color right.” After a half-hour pour and a twelve-hour drying process, the resulting 12-18mm thick rubber surface was swathed around a plywood frame “like a tight-fitting cloak,” Brown says. “Run your hand over it and it causes friction. It’s a sticky product—it grips.” The table’s center of gravity was found by balancing the finished piece on a paint can; the top screwed onto the base; and, in the end, the unique confluence of materials and collaborators produced a one-of-a-kind finished product.
‘The table has a depth—it becomes alive.’ An interview with Konstantin Grcic
‘Touch is a sense that’s often overlooked.’ An interview with Sebastian Wrong
