Wood panels used for the floors of Venice's ubiquitous water taxis surround a bookcase and a coffee table by Italian designer Davide G Aquini (+ slideshow).

Items in the Pagliòlo Collection by Davide G Aquini are wrapped in vertical okumè panels, more commonly used in boat building.

Pagliòlo is the Italian word for the flooring used in the bottom of the Venetian vehicles.

"Whenever possible I like to let myself be inspired by what I feel is part of me, my training, my life," said Aquini, who came up with the idea for the collection while watching boat taxis in the canals of Venice, the city where he is based.

Both the table and storage unit are raised off the ground on four steel tubing legs, supporting oval-shaped horizontal sections milled from MDF and lacquered in white or grey.

The structure is wrapped in the okumè cladding, which also provides structural support for the top, leaving a fixed opening to allow access to the inside.

The corners of the okumè panels are rounded by hand and treated with a primer to obtain the colour base, before being coated with numerous coats of acrylic paint to achieve the same high gloss finish seen on boats in Venice.

"Pagliòlo is a project inspired by a detail typical of the corner of the world where I grew up," said Aquini.

"The sparkling and slightly retro liveries of the water taxis have always fascinated me and they are the starting point from which I designed this collection."

Originally a graphic designer, Aquini's previous furniture projects include a series of sideboards inspired by Byzantine mosaic art, a wireframe lamp using the visual language of 1980s virtual reality, and a sideboard clad in the slats that are used to shield furniture during the lacquering process.