Distil Desk and Table

Designed by Todd Bracher
Distil Desk and Table

Distil Desk and Table
Equally appropriate in a small office or a work room, Distil takes work seriously without taking over. Designer Todd Bracher ensures this equilibrium by refining the idea of a desk to its essence. With solid wood legs, eased edges, molded plywood top, and refreshingly honest answers to handling wires and storage, this desk is approachable, physically and aesthetically.

Without storage, Distil is an elegant table. With it, in vertical or horizontal orientation, Distil is a desk. Cleverly designed to keep devices and chargers close at hand but out of sight, Distil's laminate-lined storage units mount on the left or the right. A removable internal drawer can double as a desktop "in box"; a soft, lined bottom ensures items won't mar the interior.

Distil's simple, straightforward solution to wires and cords channels them the length of the desk through cutouts in the cross stretchers. The essential nature of Distil extends to its assembly: it goes together with a simple tool in a few minutes.

Design Story
Todd Bracher has created everything from glare-free lighting to clothing made of cork. When designing, he says, "I study very carefully how people interact with objects, and I try to capture what's meaningful in that exchange." He subscribes to what he calls "irreducible complexity, boiling a thing down to its most fundamental aspect," so that an object consists of only what is essential to its purpose.

With the Distil Desk, he studied how one interacts with a work surface and asked himself "Why are table edges so sharp?" Remedying this obvious, but rarely addressed, issue led to the creation of folded edges that are easy on the arms. He continued asking questions: "How can we make it lightweight and structural?" Molded plywood was the answer. "Where would a carpenter hide the wires?" They would thread them through cutouts in the cross-stretchers. In this way, constraints drove creativity.

"I subscribe to 'irreducible complexity'—how much can I take out until all that's left is the essence?"
More about Todd Bracher

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