Terra Mare
Australia
2026
An adaptable, forever table of land and sea. Finalist for the 2026 Australian Furniture Design Award.
The table is designed as a simple geometry with a rich material strategy. A flexible round top is supported by three monolithic cylindrical legs, and includes a series of adaptable inserts. The table’s material is tied to place and repurposed from existing industrial and waste streams. Each table in the series draws its terrazzo mix from the shell and stone particular to an Australian city. The table shown here is for Sydney: Sydney Rock Oyster shell and crushed Bathurst marble and limestone in a sea-green cement matrix. In Perth, Darwin, Melbourne and elsewhere, the terrazzos differ. The Adelaide table, for instance, uses razor clam shell with Stonyfell quartzite in a brown ochre.
A table is the most fundamental piece of domestic furniture. It is where people eat, work, study, talk and sit. In a compact setting the life of the dwelling revolves around the table, not the sprawling sofas of suburbia. Terra Mare proposes a piece of reassuring weight and durability.
Australia’s capital cities sit on radically different geologies, with adjacent land masses spanning from the Tertiary period (0-64m years) to the Archaean (2500m years). Yet beyond mineral extraction, these stones are overwhelmingly put to industrial use, crushed for road base or ground into paint filler. Surrounded by different oceanic conditions, each city also draws on marine environments that produce distinct shell types, discarded in volume as waste by aquaculture and hospitality industries. The aggregates in the Terra Mare table series are therefore ancient geological artefacts and contemporary biological residues.
The tabletop incorporates small terrazzo plugs above each leg, which accept a family of removable bronze inserts. These inserts support different domestic scenarios: a reading light; a slender vase; a vessel for pens or cutlery; a pair of bookends; a candlestick holder; a computer monitor arm. The legs contain central voids, reducing material and weight, and allow cables to be routed when a monitor arm or lamp is inserted. The table absorbs each change without requiring additional space and furniture.
The family of accessories are machined from rod of equal diameter for efficiency and to allow easy switching of positions. Solid bronze was chosen for its high quality, satisfying weight, longevity and patina with use.
Besley & Spresser
Hamish McIntosh
Terrazzo Australian Marble
Felix Engineering
H.E. BurnsDesign
Photography
Fabrication
