Designer Neal Aronowitz used Concrete Canvas, a flexible, concrete-impregnated fabric, to design a series of tables that wouldn’t have been possible with ordinary concrete.

Concrete Canvas, also known as Concrete Cloth, is a flexible, concrete-impregnated fabric that hardens on hydration to form a thin, durable, waterproof and fire-resistant concrete layer. Basically, it is concrete cloth on a roll. It has been used to make rapidly deployable shelters, particularly in disaster-relief situations, as well as for erosion control and ditch lining. It reduces the environmental impact of concrete applications by up to 95 per cent.

Aronowitz designed 4 tables with Concrete Canvas. Two of them, the Whorl series, have a ribbon-like and almost gravity-defying shape. The challenge in the design and construction of this series was to stretch the tensile strength of the material to its limits for aesthetic beauty and interest, seemingly defying gravity. At the same time, each piece needs to maintain its structural integrity as a utilitarian object intended for everyday use.

To make the tables, Aronowitz developed new casting and forming techniques to achieve the tables’ ribbon-like structure. The surface consists of pigmented cement mortar lightly skim-coated over the entire surface and sanded to a very smooth, highly polished finish. Whorl Console, a console table, won the 2017 Grey Award for Production Design.

The Enso table is a wall fastened console that draws inspiration from the creative practice of Japanese ink painting, in which once something is drawn in a single fluid brush stroke and not changed.

Todos Table was designed for a boutique hotel in Mexico. Intended to be light enough to move, yet sturdy enough for indoor/outdoor use.

For more about Concrete Canvas, click here.

Photos: Miroslav Trifonov / Ouum Studio / Kerry Davis Photography (via V2com)