edition 04
a solid-wood table built from deadstock timber: made to be taken apart, moved, and to age into character
Edition 04 is a solid-wood table developed in Japan with local craftsmen, exploring the relationship between timber, material authenticity and everyday living. Rather than specifying new, uniform stock, the project works with carefully selected deadstock timber, embracing the natural variation and character of wood that already exists, and giving new value to a material that would otherwise be overlooked.
The result balances precise construction with a quiet presence. The wood is left to set the atmosphere of a space rather than compete with it, and the table is conceived as part of daily life: something that ages naturally and gains character through use over time.
Professional Project - Teruhiro Yanagihara Studio
Design Team: Teruhiro Yanagihara, Kayako Asada, Alessandro Basiaco In collaboration with: local craftsmen, Japan Location: Kobe, Hyogo, Japan 2025
My contribution: preliminary research and ideation, 3D modeling, prototyping
01
process
Starting from the Material
The project begins not with a form but with a material condition: deadstock timber, sound wood left unused and overlooked. Each board is chosen for its own grain and irregularities rather than sorted out of them, so the variation a conventional process would reject becomes the very thing the design preserves. Working this way gives new worth to what already exists, and roots the piece in a real material rather than an idealised one.
Made with Craftsmen
The table was developed in Japan alongside local craftsmen, in a close exchange between design intent and first-hand knowledge of how this particular wood wants to be worked. That collaboration shows in the restraint of the result: the construction is precise, but never louder than the material it serves.
Designed to Come Apart
For a table meant to live in commercial spaces, logistics matter as much as looks. Edition 04 was conceived as a knock-down system: a solid wood top and screw-fixed legs that assemble, disassemble, transport and maintain with ease. It is a quietly practical decision: it lets a heavy, honest material stay durable in use while remaining easy to move, ship and repair.
Proving It at Full Scale
The most critical ergonomics were tested with a full-scale mock-up. To save time and material, only the portion of the table directly involved in user interaction was built; enough to verify seating comfort, leg clearance, edge proportions and overall usability before committing to the final design. Getting these human dimensions right first meant the finished piece could be resolved with confidence.
02
final design
Edition 04 is a solid-wood table reduced to its essentials: a generous timber top carried on screw-fixed legs, built to be used every day and to last. Nothing is applied to the wood that would distract from it: the construction is exact, the presence quiet, and the material is left to speak for itself.
The Life of the Wood
Because the natural qualities of the timber are left visible rather than sanded into uniformity, the table is designed to evolve. Marks, patina and the slow changes of daily use are not flaws to be hidden but part of the object's life: the piece is meant to gain character over time, ageing alongside the people who use it.
Made for Contract
Edition 04 is designed to work in contract and hospitality settings, where a table is rarely used on its own. Its proportions were set with that in mind: a 75 cm square module, and a longer 75 × 150 cm version that reads as two of those squares placed end to end. Because both formats share the same footprint logic, they aggregate and separate freely.
