Sculptural wooden planters form the legs of a modular desk, designed by Heatherwick Studio as part of the Design Museum's Connected: Made Together, Apart project at London Design Festival.
Called Stem, the system is made up of six legs of different heights and diameters, which can be combined and clamped onto a desk surface to prop it up.
"We thought, what if we designed in effect clamps that are a system of legs, that you can apply to any surface you think you'd like to work at, whether it's a door or an IKEA tabletop or a piece of stone," explained the studio's founder Thomas Heatherwick.
"And then you take the same stem that holds up that surface and allow that to extend and contain a substantial piece of nature," he told Dezeen. The modular Stem desk system features wooden legs that double up as planters
Heatherwick, who designed the desk during coronavirus lockdown, incorporated living plants into the design to create a desk that aligned with the ideals of Attention Restoration Theory, which was developed by psychologists Rachel and Stephen Kaplan in the 1980s.
"It proposes that exposure to natural environments for 40 seconds or so really has very tangible improvements to brain functioning and to help your mind recover and replenish in-between periods of concentration," said Heatherwick.
"I usually have the luxury of moving around between teams and people and places. And that means that there is a certain kind of mental response that...