Designer furniture captures the beauty of steel
Wednesday 23 July 2014 | Posted by: Rod Hanna
What is it about steel? “I love designing with steel” says Designers’ Collection owner and designer Rod Hanna.
Designers' Collection has been designing,
sourcing and tailor-making furniture for New Zealand's leading
Interior Architects and Designers for over 28 years. One of the
distinctive characteristics of their designs is how effectively
they utilise the beneficial qualities of steel with other materials
to create aesthetically pleasing and highly functional furniture
that is easily tailored to individual tastes.
"Steel has a natural organic quality and stoic robustness that
somehow resonates with our engrained New Zealandness. Its inherent
strength allows us to create an aesthetic fineness that accentuates
shape. Its intrinsic neutrality allows it to blend harmoniously
with other materials like timber, stone and glass."
Designers' Collection uses steel in creating dining tables, coffee tables, side tables, shelving and consoles.
Their new Skyline Console typifies the finest qualities
of the marriage between sculptured steel and hand-crafted oak. The
Skyline Console's lines create a simple yet sophisticated form. The
hand wire-brushed oak is heavily grained and enticingly
tactile. It creates an appealing juxtaposition to the clean
matt finish of the steel base that cleverly wraps around it. The
distinctly divergent characteristics of these materials amplify the
richness and individuality of the French oak.

The simple elegance of the Skyline Console's shape helps it
compliment a wide range of settings and situations and it will
effectively hero art-pieces, heirlooms and treasures displayed upon
it. Their Skyline design has also been created as a coffee table
and writing desk.
Dining Tables
Steel lends itself to sculpturing shapes that cannot be created
or are extremely costly to create in timber. The intrinsic strength
of steel allows fine profiles to be used adding greater emphasis to
shapes and allowing table tops to float more freely on their
bases. Designers' Collection's Seville table features interlinking curved
legs and stretchers giving it an ornate and elegant note.
The simplicity of the Xavier table's cross-legged structure is
visually strong and is recessed away from the seating area allowing
the free flow of diners around the table. Steel can also be
galvanised for outdoor use.


Side Tables and Consoles
The ability to use fine gauge steel allows Designers' Collection
to create highly functional side tables and consoles. These play a
support role to the dominant furniture in a setting, while adding
interest through artistic form and with the inclusion of
interesting and eye-catching materials on the table tops.
Rod Hanna's Ring table cleverly interlinks two
ring shaped forms to fashion an intriguing silhouette that can be
scaled to suit its environment and can be enhanced with the
introduction of colour.

The Rod Table by Cameron Foggo of Nonn Design
employs fine circular steel to great affect with its distinctive
labyrinth of legs.

Coffee Tables
The relative neutrality of steel allows it to be blended easily
with a raft of other materials like timber, glass and stone. This
allows Interior Designers and Architects to exploit the same design
across a range of clients altering the look considerably through
the use of different table tops and base effects.
Stainless steel can be used in a polished or brushed form. Steel
can be black etched, powder-coated or be individually hand painted
like many of Designers' Collection's bases are.
Planked rustic oak is inserted into the top of this Brooklyn Coffee Table. A shelf is added and
the steel is hand painted with a black bronze effect.

This classic Mandolin coffee table demonstrates the
sculptural shape that can be crafted in beaten steel. The base is
embellished with a hand-painted antique bronze effect with further
glamour delivered through the inset of a mirror glass top.

Designers' Collection's Java Coffee Table illustrates steel bent in a
circular fashion resulting in a centre-piece that allows easy
movement throughout its setting. The table top is
hand-painted to give it a highly personalised look and an impactful
patina. This table also lends itself to a marble or glass top
and can be made as a side table.

So what is it about steel?
It is highly adaptable to create a myriad of different shapes,
while maintaining a fineness that is difficult to design and craft
in other materials.
It has an intrinsic quality that allows it to blend seamlessly
with other materials resulting in furniture that is not only highly
functional but also appealing to the most discerning eye.