On the occasion of the forthcoming Saint-Étienne Design Biennial, Japanese design studio Nendo will present the Coloured Pencil Table installation, from 14 — 31 March 2013.

Comprised of a series of wooden tables forming a colour gradient in their ensemble, the installation seeks to offer a glimpse of the future of furniture, through the manipulation of surface texture.

"We used a technique called udukuri to carve away the soft parts of cypress boards so that the harder curves and lines of the wood grain stand out," state Nendo, who then proceeded to cover the boards with paper, tracing its relief with coloured pencils and thus transferring the wood grain onto paper.

The resulting effect created what Nendo deems "a tantalizing juxtaposition" between familiar notions such as the wood texture and the paper finish, creating a fusion between the subtle shades and blur of the coloured pencils and the raised wood grain.