Leibal, the journal of minimal architecture, interiors and objects, has published a feature on the Maru dining table. What Leibal selects tends to share one quality: nothing is there that does not need to be. That is the standard Maru was drawn to meet.
The feature follows the Red Dot Award: Design Concept 2026 that Maru received earlier this year.
What Leibal saw
The feature reads the table the way we hoped it would be read — from the base upward. The legs flare as they rise and become the top rather than meeting it at a joint, so the load travels straight down instead of out toward the edge. That is what keeps a Ø1300 top in solid oak flat over years of use, and it is why the profile can stay slender without looking fragile.
The edge follows a superellipse: curved enough to read as thin from across the room, rounded enough not to press into a forearm resting on it. The top is panel-built from solid white oak boards, FAS grade, kiln-dried and sealed at 9–10% moisture before a single cut is made. A one-slab round of this size would cup and split; a properly built panel stays a circle.
No head of the table. Everyone sits at the same distance, and the conversation does the rest.
Why a round table
A rectangular table seating six implies a head and two corners. A round one does not. Maru seats four to six with everyone equidistant from the centre — a small decision that changes how a dinner feels more than any finish or material would. It was designed to sit alongside the Yume chair and the Ishi stool, but it holds a room on its own.
It is made in a single charcoal oak finish, hand-sanded through progressive grits before an ultra-thin matte lacquer, so the grain reads as texture rather than colour.
Where to read it
The full feature, with ten photographs of the table, is on Leibal: Maru Table by Mililab. Maru is made to order and shipped to 34 countries with shipping and taxes included.
Maru Dining Table · Mililab Co., Ltd. · Designed in Tokyo · 2026. Red Dot Award: Design Concept 2026. Featured in Leibal, September 2026.