Above: Table from Kevin Tousignant’s Tables of the Lakes line
Ask any Minnesotan about a memory of life at the lake, and you’re sure to get countless stories about one of the state’s many bodies of water. For Kevin Tousignant, these stories led to a thought-provoking project about water. A graduate student in landscape architecture, Tousignant designed and made Tables of the Lakes, a series of tables inspired by Minneapolis’s Chain of Lakes. The tables, which Tousignant created with all locally supplied materials, feature the topography beneath Lake Calhoun, Lake Harriet, Lake of the Isles, and Cedar Lake made from layers of Baltic birch plywood. Topped with glass and placed on a steel base, they are sleek and practical. Tousignant also intends them to be furniture for thought, sparking conversations about water’s role in everyday life. The tables, soon to be available by order, are on display in the architecture library at the University of Minnesota’s Rapson Hall this fall.
By Hannah Johnson
Photo courtesy of Kevin Tousignant
