UC97

We met a building contractor whose debt had been settled in an unusual currency: a shipping container full of dry tropical logs. Nobody knew their exact origin, certification, or species — they had arrived as payment, not as timber.

We believed they deserved better than that, as most of the discarded materials we elevate do.

The wood turned out to be intensely coloured — sucupira, most likely — too red for what we had in mind, but with a grain and density that made it worth pursuing. We burned it. Tropical hardwoods take to fire well. What emerged was a surface where the intense colour gave way to deep blacks, with flashes of warm blonde that the grain revealed once oiled.

The marble came next — Emperador, very black, extraordinary. Against the burned wood it was an obvious match: the dark tones unified, the blonde glints in the timber found their echo in the stone's veining.

The shape was one AMBER had already tested in UC25 — sculptural, fluid, with the organic ellipse that suits a small dining table designed for intimacy rather than ceremony. Around 160 x 100cm, enough for a real meal without filling a room.

The top and base are separated by carbon fibre tubes — black, slender, unambiguously twenty-first century — leaving a gap of air between the two materials. A small detail that changes everything about how the piece reads.