Italian designer Simone Bonnani has designed a series of terracotta coffee tables for Moooi, which are made to appear handmade, natural and "gently imperfect".
Called Obon, the minimalist furniture collection features three tables with irregular, slab-like surfaces and cylindrical bases. They are an orange-brown colour, the shade of natural terracotta.

The Milan-based designer wanted to combine streamlined, geometric shapes with the aged appearance and texture of terracotta to create furniture items that appear both new and old.
The aim was to create a series of rustic tables that seem to be handmade rather than set using a mould.

"I immediately thought that these products should be very simple in shape but rich in material, devoid of visible technical details, soft and defined by reassuring contours," said Bonnani. "The idea was to introduce a series of objects which appeared to be handmade and that could create a natural and gently imperfect tone. I wanted to make the object look beautiful for its spontaneity and genuineness, not for its complexity," he explained.

He began by sketching three "pure, irregular and graphic" shapes onto a canvas before building moulds and injecting them with terracotta clay.
Together with a ceramicist from Veneto, Italy, Bonnani experimented with a selection of glazes to give the table surfaces a more tactile appearance.

They tried various thicknesses of chamotte, a ceramic raw material with a hig...