BOWLS & TRAYS

Fundamental.Berlin builds them from polished metal and hand-cut crystal, on geometry rather than ornament.

Gravity is a steel grid warped by an invisible mass at its centre, the way a planet curves the space around it. The Tray works by a door, the Centerpiece at table scale. The interlocking sections are articulated, so the angle of the warp stays adjustable. Two colourways were commissioned by the Centre Pompidou and Grand Palais museum shops.

Push arrives flat. Apply gentle pressure and the milled metal yields into a bowl of your own proportions — a Catch All by the door, a Jewelry Bowl for a bedside table, or a set of three in steel, brass and copper. The form you make is the form it keeps; the material does not take infinite revision.

Hover appears to levitate — a thin disc held just far enough above the table to cast a shadow and imply a gap. The Heat Stand is stable under the heaviest cast iron, the Coasters the same at drink scale. Both are dishwasher safe.

Rainbow is cut from solid crystal under a dichroic film. Crystal already splits light; the film amplifies what is latent in the glass. The Bowl sits with weight as a centrepiece, the Box as an object in its own right.

Berlin, since 2011. Gunnar Rönsch and Steve Molloy came out of architecture and kept the habit of letting structure make the decisions.