Wood in a White Room

The room is white on white: painted walls, white tile to half height, terrazzo underfoot, and a full sheet of glass onto the street. Light comes in from one side all day, and every surface is hard and bright, with nothing to soften it.

Every piece of loose furniture here is ours, and we made all of it — the smallest stool through to the long table running parallel to the shopfront glass. The stools sit at a height that lets every one of them slide right under the tops, so the walkway between tables is clear when nobody is sitting. The wall console is built narrower than a dining table, enough to walk behind someone standing at it without having to step around.

Pieces this different in size are held together as one set by two details. The first is the square section repeated at close to the same size through every table and every square stool, from a low stool leg to the leg of the long table. The second is the low rail, which floats clear of the floor at a matching height and runs as one low line around the room. The tops are all boards joined along their length, laid with the grain running the same way, so from the door it reads as one set rather than pieces gathered from different places.

A café is harder on furniture than a house. Stools get dragged in and out every day, and tops get wiped every time a customer leaves. So every frame is built as a square box that carries the load across the whole structure, rather than resting it on a single joint. And because this is reclaimed teak, already done moving before it was worked, it sits steadier under a shopfront of sun all day than new timber would.