
Never underestimate the power of a tiny insect. After all, the entire Jurassic Park franchise began with a single amber-trapped mosquito. And now, Vancouver designer Calen Knauf credits the inspiration for his latest piece of furniture to a fly.

During a trip to design curator Alice Stori Liechtenstein’s Austrian castle, Knauf noticed a bug forming concentric ripples as it moved across a water-covered table. He later returned to this memory to develop his own petri dish-esque composition, the appropriately named Flywater occasional table.

Granted, the design swaps out actual flies for a trio of waxed aluminum legs, each dipped into its own individual puddle of tinted epoxy resin. Once set, these three forms are then immersed in a series of consecutively larger communal puddles, increasing both the tabletop’s thickness and its enchanting ripple effect.

Flywater made its debut during Toronto’s DesignTO festival at Slanted/Enchanted, an exhibition organized by local designer Jamie Wolfond to explore fabrication techniques outside the realm of industrial production.
Playing Fly on the Wall to Calen Knauf’s Design Process
An insect-inspired side table demonstrates the merits of paying close attention to one’s surroundings.