Guest contributor and graduate of architecture Nikita Bhopti discusses memory and materiality with the Gridwork Side Table, designed by Jonathan Ben-Tovim of Melbourne studio Ben-Tovim Design.
Working in the architecture industry, we aim to specify pieces that reflect the style of the homes we design, and the memories associated with them. When looking at the fluted glass on B-TD’s Gridwork Side Table, I’m reminded of running my fingers across the reeded glass sliding doors in the weatherboard cottage I grew up in. The kitchen had a ‘tupperware orange’ benchtop, where we would make pizza dough every weekend. When speaking with founder of B-TD, Jonathan, he shared that the aluminum frame of their Gridwork Side Table could be powdercoated ‘tupperware orange’, immediately evoking a sense of childhood delight onto an already smart piece of furniture.
The Gridwork Side Table is a highly customisable piece, allowing it to comfortably reside in almost any interior setting. It is part of B-TD’s most recent Gridwork collection, which also includes a coffee table and cabinet. Based in a studio in Melbourne’s Broadmeadows, Jonathan and his team of two have a history with creating minimal pieces that celebrate the material and functional properties of objects found in Australian interiors.
Jonathan imagines the side table “sitting next to a bed or a couch. An informal way of storing and displaying a few books on the go came to mind”. The fluted glass panels which infill the aluminium structure are sourced from a supplier in Dandenong South. “What really attracted me to the material is the optical effect it creates with objects inside the cavities. It is quite a fun effect”. And, for many, this effect brings up memories associated with textured glass, found in the Australian homes we grew up in.
Jonathan explains how the panels in the Gridwork Side Table can be reconfigured to create more openness for access, or add additional surfaces for objects like books and magazines to lean onto. The materiality of these panels can also be changed to ply or metal, allowing the Gridwork Side Table to adjust itself towards working in a potentially more industrial interior.
My mind immediately wonders what the Gridwork Side Table would look like with mint green lino-clad panels like those from my grandmother’s house.
The Gridwork Side Table also adopts the use of aluminium – a material that is very familiar to the makers at B-TD. The design is based on an extrusion and joining system developed by Jonathan, rendering the concept for this collection highly customisable, with “endless possibilities”. When talking about the aluminium extrusions used, Jonathan shares that he has “a ton of it in the studio, so I don’t have to go far”. Matching the customisable nature of its infill panels, various powdercoat colours allow the aluminium structure of the table to also be specified, in order to fit a specific interior. It’s quite easy to imagine a mustard yellow powdercoated Gridwork Side Table for a modernist reno, or a Pale Eucalypt frame used for a bush retreat home.
While it is always a treat to find pieces of furniture that meet highly functional standards, architects, interior designers and furniture enthusiasts are often braced with the challenges of specific briefs, and are commonly restrained by the availability of colour, size, functionality or character. B-TD’s intention behind the Gridwork collection was to form a system for furniture objects, rather than to form the end result – a concept quite exciting for those looking to furnish unique spaces with character.
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