Not everyone fancy a less popular sport like Ping Pong, AKA table tennis, which naturally makes owning a ping pong table something of a connoisseur thing. But, but… not if the table tennis table is one from Masterwal called UA1, designed by 36-year-old Japanese designer Mikiya Kobayashi. Using a combination of brass, natural walnut wood and leather, and basing around simple lines, Kobayashi-san has created a ping pong table that is both minimalist and classy. It is luxurious in an unexplainable classy way. In other words, it has a hint of opulence but without feeling ostentatious. It needs no gold, silver or platinum to express luxurious.
The use of natural wood, like walnut, white oak and black cherry, is very much part of traditional Japanese furniture design culture and here Kobayashi cleverly invite this culture in and injecting with subtle elements of brass and leather. The brass, btw, can be found as the dividing line of the table, as well as the net’s hardware. The result is an exceedingly simple, yet elegant table that one can’t help but to steal a few more looks. Perhaps the most brilliant of all is, while UA1 primarily function as a ping pong table, it also serves as a regular table for meals too. Just remove the leather net and its accompanying brass hardware, and voila! A table for just about anything you wish.
UA1 was created as part of Masterwal’s ‘Yu‘ collection which also includes armchairs, also designed by Mikiya Kobayashi. In this collection, minimalism rules, but it is, not surprisingly, not without a hefty sticker. A unit will set you back at princely sum of 702,000 Yen, which works out to be around 6,233 American dollars.
Images: Masterwal/Mikiya Kobayashi.
via designboom.
