"I love to design," writes Andrea Brugnera, "and I like to manufacture by myself the prototypes that I draw, getting my hands and glasses dirty. I prefer to use wood for my projects, because it spreads color and nature."

Taking the word "spreads" literally, Treviso-based Brugnera has come up with the Assiduo Outdoor Table, which expands along one axis to roughly double its length. The conventional approach with this type of table is to have two table surfaces that, once separated, then have the gap filled in by a leaf concealed within the table; in contrast, Brugnera uses slats for the table, with each containing its own leaf.

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Assiduo is an outdoor table that doubles the length using two movements, without use of extensible mechanisms. The first movement is the opening of the plane by moving the axis slides , the remaining axes are fixed to the frame. The second movement consists in rotation of axes thanks to the hinges in stainless steel strip along the thickness axis, the axis tilts closing the space adjacent and discovering their mate below.

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The Assiduo is made from larch and ships flat:

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The design requires more hardware than the conventional approach—I can't quite tell from the photos, it seems he's using piano hinges—but the mechanicals are simpler. And the user will burn a few more calories folding out eight leaves rather than one. What do you think of the design, is it worth the trade-off?