Who would have thought that thousands of ball bearings rolling back and forth on a rocking coffee table could be so utterly fascinating? With Tommi Grönlund and Petteri Nisunen’s Wave of Matter table in your living room, you won’t need a TV.
While I’m sure they’d be just as appreciated by women, these unfortunately named ‘Man’ Tables are designed to hide a mini fridge in a classy living room setting. Or, to be more specific, anywhere but a dorm room.
You claim to be interested in science? Do you sit down to eat your dinner at a periodic table table? No? Then be quiet. Because Theo Gray, co-founder of Wolfram Research, out-geeks you, hands down.
If Robert van Embricqs worked in IKEA’s design and engineering department, the company wouldn’t have to worry about creating instructional videos for assembling its furniture. All his Rising Table needs is some heavy lifting and the pull of gravity.
No, that’s not an LCD screen pretending to be a zen garden. That’s sand (well, tiny silicon beads) under a glass sheet, with images being sculpted into the grains by a programmable robot that lives underneath. If you think it’s the most beautiful piece of furniture you’ve ever seen, you’re in luck — its currently a Kickstarter project you can be involved in, so you can eventually have your very own.
When I was a in high school, I built the bridge of the Enterprise in my parents’ basement out of old computer parts. I was pretty proud of my level of Trek fandom. Now, Inhabitat found something that tops that level of Trekkie swag: a coffee table modelled after the USS Enterprise.
It’s not coffee that I’d place on my Kanagawa table, should I ever procure one, but RAID.
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