Like certain luminaries before and doubtless more to come, designers Ana Mil and Emil Padrós of Barcelona's emiliana design studio seem smitten with the potential of plywood. Like Alvar Aalto and the Eames duo before them, Mil and Padrós apparently love curves almost as much as they admire the blatant contradiction of the concept of bent wood. They respect it so much, in fact, that they designed an entire series of stools in different heights and finishes to showcase what ply can do for you: "The Naoshima Stool combines four identical pieces of plywood to construct the seat. The seat, together with four wooden legs, creates a solid and unique whole. The empty spaces generated in the corners of the plywood seat make Naoshima a light and visually vibrant piece of furniture."

Naoshima Collection. Designed by emiliana design studio.

"Light" and "vibrant" it is indeed. The piece has a seamless continuity that-once again-appears a contradiction in a wooden furnishing. Close-ups of the top (especially in the dyed or heavily-lacquered versions) defy the certainty that this is, in fact, constructed of ply, such are the fluidity of its lines, the uniformity of its material-virtually challenging one to find the hidden grains. And, of course, the natural oak version celebrates that grain as the colored ones seem to obscure it, giving the piece the very same unbroken continuity with its lower half.

Naoshima Stool. Designed by emiliana design studio.

Naoshima Table and Stoll. Designed by emiliana design studio.

Naoshima Stool. Designed by emiliana design studio.

Naoshima Stool. Designed by emiliana design studio.

Naoshima Table. Designed by emiliana design studio.

But how I go on about the stools when these are only 4/5ths of the story, the remaining fifth being the accompanying centerpiece of the Naoshima Table. This furnishing is every match for Emiliana's quartet of stools. Just as they are long and sleek and delight in their negative space, so too does the slim, tall table, while also relishing its clever inversion of the stool's color scheme.

Naoshima is offered by manufacturer Ziru Contract, the very same Valencia, Spain-based folks who brought us Francesc Rife's Nord Collection. As with the earlier offering, this latest suggests Spain is dialed in on space-savvy designs for our increasingly small world-we're all quite pleased to see it.