Addendum - Newsletter chairs.ws n.2 Aprile 2006

"The idea to plan an extendable table came from the demand on the market to have a simple table, square, extendable, ideal for a small apartment to where we have worked"

From 1999 me, arch. Stefania Borgobello and the architect Stefano Contin deal with architectural planning and developing in particular way the planning of interiors.

Making a search on the market to find a table that adapts to the architectural project to which we were working, we have ascertained that a table didn't exist with the characteristics that we looked for and that they were substantially: form, dimension, functionality, practicality and aesthetics, the project seemed to us interesting to not only develop for us and for our demands but also in an ampler vision of production and a possible market venture.

The fundamental idea was to create an extendable table that had determined fundamental characteristics for us: the initial thing was the form of the table "closed" it had to be square and with the look of a fixed table, secondly when extended to maintain the same sleek line of a long table and not to be fixed, this to accommodate 4 to 6-8 people, the third aspect had as many importance was the aesthetics of the table, clean in the forms, essential, young, fresh, coloured and simple to use in its mechanism of extension.

Our search therefore is to develop not only in the aesthetical direction, but also the technique in the sizing of the various constituent parts of the table, in the positioning of the extensions to disappear in the thickness of the body, in the search of simplicity of use for the user.



The conceived idea of the project has been proposed to the firm "The L’Abbate Srl" of Girolamo the manufacturing company L’Abbate have already similar objects in the same line from us "Fly Away" which is a trolley-table and a wheeled cart for the kitchen characterized from a search of form, function and materials and a lamp CD "Yesterday" with which we have received a special mention in the contest "Younger designer 2003."

Our research develops us especially to conceive objects that answer to manifold functions, therefore the small that becomes a tray as the wheeled trolley for the kitchen and the lamp with a simple gesture "Yesterday" that also when it is off it has the function of a container of CD’s, for us however they are fundamental philosophical aspects at the base of the conception of the same object.

The table "Foureight" has been researched and realized in this road of form and function as transformation in answer to the demands of today's life.

Together with the producer Girolamo of L'Abbate we have the technical aspects for "industrialization" of the product especially in function to a containment of the costs of production, an important aspect in safeguarding the aesthetics and the philosophy of the initial project.

The prototype of the table which is now available has been presented for the first time at the fair "For design - form and function" organized by the manufacturing firm in September 2004.

The extendable table "Foureight" has been manufactured with the base in steel and the top in lacquered MDF in various colours or plain wood, with the legs with or without wheels.

The road that bring a designer to conceive a new product can be then: an idea can be born from a functional demand that brings to a creative trial, from a process of natural inspiration that can draw a sprout from various things that can be material, a form in nature, a colour, a sound or from a relationship or collaboration with a firm for which chooses a designer who has a certain affinity and with which develop together then in a synergic way of ideas setting the technical-productive part of the project.

The meeting of the three "paths" in an only creative-functional-productive run has the synthesis that could be to our opinion of the ideal to conceive a new object of design from the idea to the end product in a creative and technical finalization to the production.



Arch.Stefania Borgobello & Arch.Stefano Contin designers