Interiors: Stacks of stones and giant pebbles will be filling your living room before you’ve even realised what happened

There’s nothing like a statement piece of furniture to break the ice when new guests arrive – something quirky and interesting to get conversation flowing. Have you considered picking up a pebble? Pebbles and stacked stones are having a moment in interior design this year. And when you see all the fun ways furniture-makers are flaunting their curves, it’s easy to see why.

Inspiration comes from walking along a beach under a crisp winter sky and finding pebbles that are irresistible to pick up; or discovering a cairn of ancient stones in the countryside piled atop a mountain. Pebbles are one of nature’s most ubiquitous curiosities, tossed, smashed and smoothed over millions of years. It’s this enduring, tactile loveability that designers are inspired by right now – from abstract towering stacks, to centrepieces, to tabletop objects for contemporary flair.

Take the Eos side table, designed by Ini Archibong for Sé – it’s a cantilevered disc on top of a ceramic or lacquered pebble-like base, giving an off-balance curvilinear silhouette (from £5,220). So simple yet sensational.

“Pebble-like forms are naturally pleasing, tactile and timeless,” says founder Pavlo Schtakleff. “Perhaps on some level this is also because they take us back to our prehistoric selves when we were more instinctive and closer to nature.

“Balancing stones, both pebbles and more monolithic forms, are represented in several of the new pieces from Sé’s Collection IV by Ini Archibong,” he continues. “They provide a sense of harmony and permanence.”

Circe Armchair from Sé’s Collection IV

If you don’t know the gallery yet, Sé commissions uber-talented designers to produce collections “with timeless forms, a curvaceous aesthetic and a spirit of play”, all of which add up to a pulse-racing mix of sculptural, yet subtle statement pieces. Visit Sé on the Fulham Road by appointment (book at se-collections.com).

Statement pebbles don’t come much grander than the coffee tables by McCollin Bryan, such as Minty (from £3,830) and Coffee Bean (from £3,600, mccollinbryan.com). Coffee Bean was chosen as the sitting-room centrepiece for the Orford House by Banda Property development in Chelsea (orfordhouse.co.uk). “It’s the talking point of the sitting room,” says Katie Harbison of Banda Design Studio, “practical, functional and very striking. It shows how a statement piece can help to zone a big open-plan space by providing an anchor for an area. We love its simplicity and the coolness it brings to the centre of the room.”

Taking the cairn stack motif into the realms of the geometric statement-piece is the Revolving Cabinet by Cappellini, at the Silvera showroom on the King’s Road, (£2,796, silveraltd.co.uk), and London artist Annie Morris has her Stoke Newington studio full of towering, colourful stacked boulders in foam, plaster, sand and raw pigment (anniemorris.com).

If you don’t have space for a statement piece, but want to experiment with the pebble look, turn to curvaceous glassware-maker Nude (nudeglass.com). Its Cairn series of sand-blasted-glass monochrome candleholders by Pentagon Design (from £73) are silky glass stacks, and their Ecrin collection of containers by Sebastian Herkner (from £40) have thick glass bases with smooth delicate coloured lids that appear as if balancing. Nude also has literal pebbles – opalescent glass-pebble coathooks by Erdem Akan (£28), and for an injection of nature, browse the Nude range of glass-pebble pots and bowls for succulents; the shimmering Nacre one (from £60) is simple yet seductive.