The planks of the tabletops and seats have a structure thatreminds one of wood. These visible ‘woodgrains’ are a resultof the productionprocess.If you look closer you will find out that it is made out of amodern late 20th century recycled material: a recycledplastic used along Dutch canals. Wind-, water-, salt-, acid-,UV-resistant, the material has practical aspects which makethese tables suitable for house, garden and kitchen.
The first table set - Tête à tête set (1997) - started offwith a wish to design furniture that would not look overdesignedbut be an ordinary product. A simple constructionbased on trial and error, like our ancestors used to do whenthey needed a table or a chair. Furniture of the kind you canfind in open-air museums or folk-art museums was aninspiration for this project. Design was not an issue inthose days.
Beer table set came a year later (longer table + two benches,1998). When the Tête à Tête set and Beer table set wereproduced for a while, requests came in for bigger tables andbenches with backs. The Deluxe set (2001) was developed as ananswer to this and later relax set was added as a standardset. All seats fit perfectly under the tables of these setsand can stay dry when it rains.In the end Relax set (2005): two low chairs and a low tablewas added as a standard set sets looking all very ordinary atfirst glimpse.
Ordinairy furniture has been sold internationaly non-stopsince the first Tête à Tête set was shown in a selfinitiatedpresentation London in 1997. Apart from the standard setsmany varieties and sizes have come out later (seeExtraordinarily FurnitureOrdinary furniture was nominated for the Rotterdam DesignPrize in 1999.
collections: Tête à Tête set: Museum Boijmans van Beuningen Rotterdam Beer table set: Musee des Arts Decoratives Paris
