Emerging idea
Designers are embracing new forms for dining – think irregular angles and swooping curves – to create super social and sophisticated tables
DESIGN K INTERIORS
D iningtables have been in our homes for many hundreds of years, but we’d argue that it’s a design that’s not quite been perfected. If you’ve ever planned a wedding, and had to choose between rectangular banquet tables or round ones, you’ll have an idea as to why.
The standard shapes of dining tables have their limitations when it comes to hosting larger numbers. Large rectangular tables are more intimate, but your guests end up in smaller pockets, while on a large round table, you may be able to see all your dinner party-goers, but they’ll feel a little distant, and the centre of the table out of reach.
However, we’re now seeing new forms for tables that are upending the traditional dynamics created around dining furniture. Irregular shapes, faceted with angles or swooping curves, are creating a new relationship between the people using these spaces, sparking more free-flowing conversation and allowing you to better engage with everyone around the table.
Designer Kristen Peña, founder of San Francisco-based K Interiors, employed such an idea in the design of the open-plan kitchen in a property in Napa Valley. ‘The formal dining room is not so formal and shares an open floor plan with the kitchen,’ says Kristen. ‘The proximity to the kitchen keeps it a little more casual, but perfect for the type of usage the family likes.’ In the adjoining dining space, a table shaped like none we’ve seen before takes centre stage. It’s irregular in shape, tapers from one end to the other and has angles (though with curved edges to ensure it’s still welcoming). The result is a table that seats eight, but creates a set-up where each of the seats better relates to each of the others. ‘We wanted to play with shapes in the dining room,’ Kristen explains. ‘Its design also makes it a piece that encourages convenient conversations, while the chairs provide both comfort and interest with their back design.’
Many of the tables we’re seeing are bespoke creations by the home’s interior designer, carefully considered to fit these spaces, but it’s something you can find in furniture designs, too. The use of angled facets is an idea that you’ll see through Pierre Yovanovitch’s design work, for example, but it’s particularly prominent in the designer’s dining tables. The Kim table is a soft-edged hexagon, while the Liberty is a more traditional rectangular shape that tapers in so that guests can better engage across the table. The Rochefort is a multi-sided polygon, in the larger shape of a loose triangle, that will add a more interesting dimension to your dinner party than a regular rectangular table could ever do.
