Design Centre Stories

Making Waves

The Tollgard showroom is known for an enviable stable of brands that together sum up the meaning of modern craftsmanship, but co-founder Staffan Tollgård is a talented product designer in his own right. His latest project sees him enter the rarefied world of limited-edition collectible pieces, thanks to a collaboration with Tollgard’s head of product design, Filippo Castellani, and stonemasonry The Refined Workshop.

The Wave collection is made from Grand Antique marble, a French stone that has a stellar history: used from Roman times onwards, it was popular with art deco designers before the quarry closed. Now reopened, the quarry is now once again supplying this prized marble, which has a distinctive fractured black and white appearance.

The dining table, console, bench and coffee table all feature tapering legs topped with a slab of stone with a wavy ‘skirt’. The top attaches to the bottom via gravity alone, buffered by cylinders of stone that nestle beautifully into one of the wave’s upward curves. The effect is one of softness and fluidity, contrasting with the solidity and weight of the stone, an incredible technical feat by The Refined Workshop.

“The aim was for the design to feel very calm and very simple. The connection of the materials slotting into each other, and gravity doing its thing in order to stabilise them – making that look easy, isn’t easy at all,” said Staffan Tollgård, speaking as part of an online Creative Collaborations talk at Focus/21 that he took part in alongside The Refined Workshop’s Simon Brown and Jessica Barrington.

Tollgård and The Refined Workshop had worked on previous interior design projects together, and this existing relationship led to the furniture collaboration. “Staffan promised to give us a challenge,” said Brown. “A lot of designers can be quite timid when they are using stone. We need someone to push us.”

Watch the Creative Collaborations talk here

Tollgard, First Floor, Centre Dome

 

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