{"id":433183,"date":"2026-02-13T14:12:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T19:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.1stdibs.com\/blogs\/the-study\/?p=433183"},"modified":"2026-02-13T14:15:21","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T19:15:21","slug":"james-de-wulf-ping-pong-table","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.1stdibs.com\/blogs\/the-study\/james-de-wulf-ping-pong-table\/","title":{"rendered":"This James de Wulf Ping-Pong Table Combines High Design and Healing Vibrations"},"content":{"rendered":"
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James de Wulf Resonating Ping Pong Table, Song no. 1<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Concrete is the foundation of James de Wulf<\/a>‘s career, literally and figuratively. He used the material to create an acclaimed body of work<\/a>, including coffee tables, fire pits and his popular Ping Pong tables. Concrete is known for its weight, its brutalist permanence and its ability to absorb sound, and after a while de Wulf found himself seeking a frequency shift, to aluminum. This departure made waves (sound waves, that is) when his Resonating Ping Pong table (Song no. 1)<\/a> featuring that metal debuted at Design Miami\/Paris and won big.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"James
James de Wulf won Best Design at Large Presentation at Design Miami Paris 2025 for Resonating Ping Pong Table, Song no. 1 .<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Song No. 1 had its roots in an art fair that took place long before Marty Supreme<\/em> brought table tennis back to the cultural zeitgeist. De Wulf noticed that the rhythmic sounds of Ping-Pong being played on a table he had created for the exhibition attracted onlookers, sparking smiles in an otherwise stuffy environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To realize this idea, de Wulf traded his signature concrete for aluminum, chosen for its superior resonance. Song No. 1 is made not from a single piece of the material but from a collection of bell plates, inspired by the mechanics of a vibraphone, the xylophone\u2019s fully metal sister. Through an obsessive R&D process, which involved sprinkling sugar on the plates to visually identify vibrational nodes, de Wulf discovered how to float them so they would ring out clearly when struck while remaining stable enough for play.<\/p>\n\n\n

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A post shared by James de Wulf (@jamesdewulf)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n