Tabletops melt into bowls in Nendo's new furniture collection, which will make its debut at Milan design week.

Created for Italian brand Alias, the Flow collection features white coffee tables, side tables and a shelving unit.

Several of the tables peel away from their metal frames at one end, sloping downwards to form a rounded storage container at floor level.

Others have oversized bowls embedded in the middle of their tabletops. Nendo describes the pieces as "enigmatic" but functional.

"Part of the tabletop appears to melt away and form a container below, as if it were completely oblivious to the table's frame structure," said Nendo. "The enigmatic pieces of furniture achieve a fluid fusion of functionality serving to hold something either on top or within."

Also for Alias, the Japanese design studio has created Okome, a modular sofa formed from a combination of 20 different types of units, each with rounded edges.

The sofa has no frame, and instead the cushions sit flat on the floor, with edges curved gently inwards to avoid dirt from shoes. A small side table can be integrated into the piece.

The Flow collection and Okome sofa are two of several projects Nendo will present in Milan, where the studio has its own exhibition space at the Jil Sander showroom on Via Luca Beltrami.

Another is a series of super-thin silicone vases, which Nendo will display in an aquarium so that they gently move around like jellyfish.

The exhibition, titled Invisible Outlines, will also feature new works created for Cappellini, Flos and Glas Italia.

Nendo's wobbly Jellyfish Vases will also be on show at Milan design week

Nendo is one of the most prolific studio around, with founder Oki Sato once telling Dezeen that working on 400 products at a time relaxes him.

Sato was the number-one ranked designer on Dezeen Hot List in 2016, and the only one to break into the overall top 20.

Nendo's exhibition will be open at Milan design week from 4 to 9 April. Other products launching in Milan this year include a marble grandfather clock by Lee Broom and a modular sofa by Tom Dixon with IKEA.