The Barcelona builder’s stool that waited 14 years to reach a wider world
The things that last are usually the simplest ones.
On construction sites around Barcelona, workers used to build small stools during lunch breaks. Three or four pieces of leftover timber. A handful of nails. The shape varied slightly from site to site, but the structure was always the same. “The most logical, efficient, and simple construction I can imagine,” said Marc Morro, the Spanish furniture designer who first noticed them.
In 2012, Morro brought that stool inside. He named it Manolito, a common Spanish name, the kind that belongs to no one in particular and therefore belongs to everyone.
In 2026, Manolito entered the HAY catalogue.
Fourteen Years
From 2012 to 2025, Manolito was produced by Spanish furniture company Indoors. It spread quietly through Barcelona’s design community, passed from friend to friend. Morro’s inner circle accumulated them. His mother owns around ten. The producer was small but the object had gravity.
HAY recognised it. This is Morro’s second collaboration with the Danish brand, after an earlier chair. This time the subject is the most elemental form of furniture. Solid FSC-certified pine. Oil wax finish. A few carefully joined wooden components. A lower cross brace locks the legs to the seat. Nothing is excessive. Nothing is missing.
Not a Stool. A Tool.
Manolito does not have one function. In the living room it is a footrest. In the bedroom it is a bedside table. In the kitchen it is the thing you stand on to reach the high shelves. In the bathroom it holds a towel. For children it is a first seat. For adults it is the option when you want to sit closer to the ground.
Two sizes: Short (H25 x W19.5 x L30cm) and Long (H25 x W19.5 x L60cm). Two colours: Natural Pine and Red. Felt feet on the base. Total weight 2.2kg, light enough to carry from room to room without thinking about it.
“It is a good basic piece to have from a young age,” Morro said, “and one that stays with you.”
When the Source Is Labour
Working in interior design and construction, the origin of this stool reads differently than it might from the outside. A worker’s improvised seat, built from offcuts, translated into a domestic object. Function determined form. No one tried to make it beautiful. It became beautiful anyway.
Where Knoll and Dozie Kanu drew from African masquerade and Texas cowboy culture, Manolito draws from a Barcelona lunch break. Both begin in daily life, in labour, in the specific. Design does not need to start from a special world. This small stool makes that argument quietly and completely.
Pine grain varies from piece to piece. No two Manolitos are identical. The oil wax finish changes with time and use. It is the kind of object that becomes more itself the longer you keep it.
Editor’s Note
A good object, in the hands of someone who uses it well, keeps doing what it was made to do.
Manolito was designed in 2012. The form has not changed. There was no reason to change it. HAY’s decision to bring it into their catalogue is not a trend play. It is a recognition of honesty. A stool born from leftover wood on a construction site now carries the name of one of the world’s most thoughtful design brands. The journey is the design.
HAY Manolito Stool | hay.com
Short: H25 x W19.5 x L30cm / Long: H25 x W19.5 x L60cm
Material: FSC-certified solid pine, oil wax finish, felt gliders
Colours: Natural Pine / Red | Weight: 2.2kg
Designer: Marc Morro (born Mallorca 1983, based Barcelona)
HAY production: 2026 onwards | Previous producer: Indoors (2012 to 2025)
Available: hay.com and HAY showrooms
