Berlin-based Danish architect Sigurd Larsen has designed a collection of tables and benches with surfaces made from materials chosen to age well (+ slideshow).

Sigurd Larsen based the furniture on a standard square section steel frame, with oak, leather, copper and concrete used for the surfaces that the body comes into contact with.

"The furniture appears thin and light in order to put the horizontal surfaces with their special attributes into focus," Larsen told Dezeen.

"I have always been very excited about materials that gain a higher quality the more you use them," he added. "I hope that this 'positive development' over time will inspire people to keep and maintain their possessions longer instead of replacing them time after time."

The Melbourne Project bench is available with a copper or steel table adjoining the leather surface, as a daybed or with an oak back rest. Tables come in dining and coffee table dimensions.

The furniture will be exhibited for four weeks from 1 September at the MINI Paceman store in Melbourne, Australia.

We recently published a coffee table with a narrow mouth that swallows books and magazines and another table made using similar techniques to surfboard manufacture.

Photography is by Georg Roske.

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