Ok, so perhaps June isn't the most appropriate time to be thinking of roaring log fires, but we're of the opinion that there's nothing wrong with being prepared...

Amaury Poudray and Remi Bouhaniche of French design studio USIN-e (see our interview with them here) have recently designed this set of pokers, grabbers and shovellers for the fireplace.

'Object' is composed of three tools and a little frame to store them - the result of their recent collaboration with traditional iron craftsman Philippe Poulard.

Demonstrating Poudray and Bouhaniche's desire 'to reveal the material and the know how with simplicity', one of the key things about the project was also to reveal the process of its manufacture:

"The marks left on the object explain the fabrication process: the shaping of the iron with a hammer and anvil. The hammering is focused on defined sections to create functional items such as a shovel, a pic and a plier as well as a surface to hang the tools up." say the designers.

For the storage frame, the legs are divided in three similar rods, bent and welded on the top at three points, and the whole height of the unit is 70cm - allowing the user to handle the tools easily.

'In this way," say Remi and Amaury, "The object" places us in front of an evident materialism charged with stories and paradoxes."