COMPASSO COFFEE TABLE

Compasso is built from layered horizontal lines. The body is a bold rectangle whose sides are divided into stacked bands, so the table reads as a series of levels rather than one mass, and the dark finish makes those lines the only thing on it. A pair of side tables repeats the same language at a smaller scale.

The layered bands

Each horizontal line has to run dead level the full length of the table and meet the next one at a constant spacing — on a long rectangular body a drift of a millimetre or two reads as a fault rather than a detail. That is the whole difficulty of making this piece, and the reason it is finished by hand. The bands also catch light differently along their edges, which is what gives a dark table depth instead of flatness.

Rectangular, and the right shape for a long sofa

A round table in front of a three-metre sofa leaves two awkward gaps. Compasso's rectangle follows the sofa line, so the surface is reachable from every seat rather than only from the middle. That is the practical reason to choose this form, and it is why the central table is drawn wide rather than deep.

The set

The side tables share the banded detail and the finish, so the three pieces read as one family. Used together they close a seating group; used apart, a side table works at the end of a sofa or beside a chair, and still matches.

Materials and sizes

Made to order. Finish, material and dimensions are specified per project — on a banded form the number and spacing of the bands is re-set with any change of size, so the proportion holds instead of stretching. Tell us the length of the sofa and we will draw the table to it.

Where it belongs

A contemporary living room with a long sofa, a lounge, an office reception. The dark finish and the strong horizontal lines suit a room with architecture of its own — concrete, glass, a plain wall — and will dominate a decorated one.