Dezeen promotion: British furniture brand Ercol has teamed up with Danish studio Norm Architects to create the Pennon Table, which takes design cues from airplane wings.
Made from a choice of solid ash or walnut, the Pennon Table is described by Ercol as "eye-catching", but with an "understated beauty".
This style is characteristic to the designers at Norm Architects, who are advocates of Scandinavian minimalism.
All elements of the table are designed to be slightly rounded, in a bid to make the interaction between user and product as comfortable, welcoming and tactile as possible.
"We wanted to create a large dining/conference table that both told the story about bringing people together in different settings, but also the story of Ercol as a brand in general," said Norm Architects.
The designers took inspiration from the shape of airplane wings when designing the leg supports, which take the form of two wide planes of wood, connected by a thinner T-shaped framework, similar to the structure typically found in old biplanes.
The way the legs have been shaped means that they are thinnest at their edges and thickest in the middle where they connect to the "spindle" structure. According to Ercol and Norm Architects, this affords a combination of both a strong and elegant construction.
This design also references the spindles of Ercol's classic Windsor chair in its under-frame construction, hinting back to the brand's roots when the Windsor collection was designed in the 1950s.
After visiting Ercol's factory in Princes Risborough – a town in Buckinghamshire, England – the Danish studio found that its production capabilities and skills in solid wood handling, steam bending and woodturning particularly stood out, and are a big part of the heritage of the company.
"This is why we decided to go for what one can almost call a hybrid between the very solid wood pieces in the legs and tabletop, in combination with the refined wood turned elements of the spindles," explained Norm Architects.
"The contrast between the two is clear and creates a design language with a lot of character and uniqueness – depending on the angle on which the table are viewed, it stands as both heavy and lightweight in one," the studio continued.
Available in both a large and small version, in either solid ash or solid walnut wood, the Pennon tables can also be easily disassembled, able to be flat-packed during transportation.
Find out more about Ercol on its website.