CANTI
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Research & Market Mapping

Extensive early research covered target markets, material perception, competitor products, and manufacturing processes. The key finding was consistent: recycled plastic has never been positioned as a luxury material in furniture. That gap was the brief. Secondary finding: post-pandemic, people were investing more in their home environments and willing to pay for pieces that meant something. That's the market CANTI sits in.

Lo-Fi Prototypes — Foam & Card

Before touching wood, the form was worked through in foamboard and card — iterating proportions, leg geometry, and overall stance quickly and cheaply. The C-form leg emerged from this stage: a cantilevered profile that created the sense of visual lightness the brief needed. Forms that didn't work were ruled out here rather than in oak.

Biscuit Joinery — Tested & Abandoned

The first approach to the leg structure used biscuit joins on the C-form profile. It failed on structural strength — the join had too little shear resistance for a cantilevered load. Reinforcing it would have spiralled production costs and, crucially, made disassembly at end of lifecycle much harder. Both problems pointed the same direction: ruled out early, which is why you test.

Rhino + KeyShot — 100+ Panel Ideations

Panel layout — the arrangement of plastic within the mahogany frames — required extensive visual exploration. Over 100 variations were generated in Rhino and rendered in KeyShot: different cut patterns, grid arrangements, material proportions, and colour combinations from the SMILE plastic range. Most were discarded. The final configuration was the one that let the plastic's natural graphic quality read clearly without competing with the wood.

Colour Testing — Indian Ink + Beeswax

Seven different finish approaches were tested across the extendable panels of the oak base — oils, varnishes, water-based sealants, and natural alternatives tested across 1 to 7 coats each. Indian ink won: it produced a depth of colour equivalent to oil-based finishes while being simpler to apply and, critically, compatible with cradle-to-cradle principles. Beeswax as a top coat added protection without sealing the wood permanently. Both materials can be removed at end of life without chemical stripping.

Mould Engineering & Origin Collaboration

The original plan was to produce recycled plastic tiles in-house using a custom mild steel injection mould — fabricated from plasma-cut sheet steel and welded box sections, with bolt fixings to attach to Origin Plastics' machine. The mould geometry proved incompatible with their specific equipment. Rather than redesign the mould, the decision was made to source A4 SMILE Plastic sheets directly and cut panels from those. A faster path to the same outcome, with better surface consistency.

Panel Refinement — 2400 Grit

The plastic panels were wet-sanded through ascending grades from rough to 2400 grit, then taken to a buffing wheel and polished. That sequence is what makes the surface premium. Most people who've worked with recycled plastic have only seen it un-refined — it looks cheap because it hasn't been finished. The buffed and polished result reads completely differently. 16 hours of sanding across the full build. The table earns its price in labour as much as material.

Oak Frame Build & Final Assembly

The surface panels were routed out of the oak frame to expose the structure. Oak corner supports were added to carry the weight of the removable panel assemblies. The mahogany strips — cut with a mitre saw and routed to accept the plywood backing — were inked and waxed to match the frame. Assembly confirmed the logic: the panels are genuinely removable. The lifecycle works as designed.