Mesa piletas
Montevideo, Uruguay
2024
Piletas Table is an ongoing furniture experiment that repurposes sink countertop cutouts, the most common waste from stone workshops.
In 2024, the stone workshop LAVIERE invited seven architecture offices from Uruguay to participate in Mōbile FIRMA, an initiative curated by La Agencia that seeks to foster new collaborations between industry and designers, exploring alternative uses for their stone products.
Faced with this challenge, Piletas Table emerged as a response that focuses on materials systematically discarded by the factory, exploring their physical properties and reuse potential. The project develops a strategy to transform this waste into furniture, shifting its fate from the stone scrap yard to the home.
Due to high demand in residential construction, kitchen countertops are one of the primary products of stone workshops, offering natural stone options such as granite and marble, as well as cutting-edge sintered materials.
Countertops typically include a cutout for the sink, with dimensions ranging from 30x40 cm to 60x90 cm. On an industrial scale, these cutouts are made using a high-precision machine that cuts the stone with a specialized tool while spraying pressurized water to prevent heat or stress buildup in the material. A grinder or polisher with diamond discs then smooths the edges and removes irregularities
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At the beginning of the cut, a 35 mm drill bit leaves a distinctive mark on the leftover piece—something this project rescues and repurposes as a remnant of the process. Following this logic, the application of yellow epoxy paint on the edges highlights the story behind the product.
Mesa Piletas is the result of a systematized assembly that brings together groups of four elements, preserving their silhouettes as they were found. The variations in texture and size make each composition unique, emphasizing the natural beauty of the stone and the traces of time embedded in its materiality.
Authors: Matías Carballal, Mauricio López
Team: Sebastián Lambert, Paula Bachino, Santiago Alvante, Alejandra Arribeltz, Laura Castell, Pablo Courreges, Hernán Gómez, Emiliano Lago, Aldo Lanzi, Lucía Martinotti, Cecilia Mautone, Diego Morera, Victoria Muniz, Agustina Vigevani
Mōbile FIRMA
Initiative and materials: LAVIERE
Creative direction and curation: La Agencia
Communication: I+D
Photography: Federika Odriozola
Images: Aldo Lanzi