Altered Appliances is a collection of four projects by students from Rotterdam's Piet Zwart Institute, all of which introduce low-tech, hand-powered appliances and ideas to the kitchen.

Rollware is a set of laser-cut rolling pins designed by Joanne Choueiri, Giulia Cosenza and Povilas Raskevicius to produce edible plates and dishes from dough.

One set of four rolling pins is used to imprint patterns on the dough.

Above: Rollware movie

Another set cuts the dough into four different plate sizes before they are baked into tableware.

Extrudough is a collection of biodegradable tableware made with a meat grinder, which designers Bo Baalman and Kine Solberg describe as an "analogue, human-powered 3D printer".

A soft dough is extruded through the meat grinder in thin tubes onto various shaped moulds and then dried at room temperature.

As well as being cheap to produce, the products have a shorter decomposing time than other temporary tableware such as paper plates.

Above: Extrudough movie

The Flip Food lunch box by Ilias Markolefas and Nathalia Martinez Saavedra is inspired by the brown paper bags often used for carrying lunch to school or work.

The designers used stencils to cut a brown paper surface into a flat template, which is then folded and assembled to form a geometric lunchbox with six compartments.

The printed patterns visible on the outside vary depending on the lunchbox's rotation, so they can be used to indicate the type of food held inside.

Reusable plastic protective containers can also be inserted into the compartments to protect certain foods.

Above: Flipfood movie

Finally Maddalena Gioglio and Egle Tuleikyte created the CONEformation measuring set from mounds of salt poured out of a contraption holding various sizes of measuring funnels.

The salt mounds are hardened by spraying water onto them and then covered with a layer of runny clay. The salt is then removed to reveal a set of ceramic measuring vessels.

The four projects emerged from a studio led by Alex Suarez – whose installation in a salt factory we featured in 2010 – and Brian Peters at the Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

Other food designs we've featured include a collection of tableware made from baked dough and prototypes for 3D-printed hamburgers and pasta – see all projects involving food.

Above: CONEformation movie

Also at Ventura Lambrate this week are a seating booth inspired by an old train carriage and dining chairs with legs that flick out like ice skates, both designed by Tjep. – see all news about Ventura Lambrate.

Dezeen is in Milan covering the highlights of the design week – see our round-up from the Salone yesterday, browse all news from Milan or check out our interactive map of the week's best talks, exhibitions and parties.

Photographs are by the designers.

Here's some more information from Piet Zwart Institute:

Altered Appliances is an exhibition presenting projects that investigate the retooling of industrial low-tech appliances and gadgets to offer alternative design solutions and experiences for today’s kitchen. The exhibition is staged as a live demonstration presenting the process of making. The kitchen was the inspiration for the design projects. Historically, the kitchen as a domestic room grew from the need to house a variety of activities related to consumption. It is a story of the making of the modern home and its components, and on the shifting place and development of the most technological, equipment-laden and factory-like room of the home.

For the projects, the designers researched historical examples of appliances/apparatus, particularly low-tech, hand powered devices to become experts in a particular appliance, use and its effect. From this initial investigation, design parameters, fabrication techniques and material experimentations were developed to define the project, its application and explore new "altered" design opportunities for the kitchen.

The projects were made during a thematic design studio by design students in the Master of Interior Architecture & Retail Design (MIARD) program at the Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam, NL.

Rollware: Edible Dishware
Designers: Joanne Choueiri, Giulia Cosenza, Povilas Raskevicius

Rollware is a set of laser-cut rolling pins designed as a tool for the production of bread-based edible dishware, which are adorned with customised and useful patterns. The sustainable products merge traditional crafts, tableware production and cooking with digital technology.

Extrudough: Biodegradable Tableware
Designers: Bo Baalman, Kine Solberg

Extrudough is a collection of biodegradable tableware fabricated using an altered meat grinder that operates as an analogue, human powered 3D printer. The product line consists of five biodegradable containers, each with a unique pattern, colour and density.

Flip Food: Lunch Box
Designers: Ilias Markolefas, Nathalia Martinez Saavedra

Flip Food is a lunch box designed to store and carry food in a playful way. It is a self-standing rotating object with six compartments to store different types of food in each section. Inspired by the classic brown paper bag used by many to carry lunch to work or school.

CONEformation: A Measuring Set
Designers: Maddalena Gioglio, Egle Tuleikyte

CONEformation is a set of measuring cones for cooking, designed for mixing ingredients and serving food. The organic shapes of the cones are an unexpected yet a practical addition to the task of measuring for recipes in the kitchen.

Instructors: Alex Suarez, Brian Peters

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Piet Zwart Institute students appeared first on Dezeen.

Daphna Laurens' Grid Plank collection comprises four beech chopping boards in different sizes, with a smooth side for preparing food and a decorative gridded side for serving.

The Grid Table has powder-coated steel legs and an angular beech top, which is shaped to reflect the diamond grid pattern carved on its surface.

Other chopping boards we've featured include a wooden design with built-in compartments and one that doubles as the base of a ceramic bowl.

Other products by the same designers include a set of cork and aluminium storage containers and a leaning floor lamp that looks like it's peeking through a wall – see all design by Daphna Laurens.

Here's some information from Daphna Laurens:

Grid Plank

The shapes of all four 'cut and serve' Grid Planks originate from Daphna Laurens' grid studies, one of many methods for the design studio to devise form and shape. Varying in size and grid, all planks are designed to be clear-­cut functional and aesthetically alluring, without adding unneeded materials or 'handy' accessories.

"Cut on the smooth, serve on the grid side." Use the plank like this and it will persist in being neat and tidy for a very long time. Oiling the beech wooden plank once in a while, using grape seed or alternative thin non-­smelling oil extends its durable use. A 'how to treat' specification comes with every Grid Plank.

Four different shapes, about 40 mm thick beech wood and grips for easy handling. Grid Plank 300X300, Grid Plank 300X400, Grid Plank 300X525 (two grid types available), Grid Plank 200X600

Grid Table

While working on the design of the Grid Plank (Inventory collection) and Gitter (wooden dwelling for concept store YOU ARE HERE) the idea to create the Grid Table arose. Like the Grid Plank, the shape of the table originates from Daphna Laurens' 'grid studies'. Meaning that the grid determines the outer shape of the table.

Constructed from beech wood and powder-coated steel, this version of the Grid Table is sized: 200 X 120 X 75 centimetres. Both the steel frame as well as the tabletop is separable into manageable parts.

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by Daphna Laurens appeared first on Dezeen.

Piamo was designed by German inventors Christoph and Hendrik Meyl, founders of Gemodo Coffee, with design studio Lunar Europe, and consists of a cup, water chamber, filter inlay and filter cap.

After filling the chamber with water, the user places ground coffee or an espresso pad inside the filter and connects the two components.

The water chamber and filter are flipped over and attached to the cup before being placed in the microwave for 30 seconds.

The pressure of the steam created in the microwave then forces the water through the coffee in the filter to create a shot of espresso.

The product is currently raising money on German crowdfunding website Startnext, where supporters who pledge €40 will receive a Piamo first.

Other designs for coffee we've featured include a milk frothing add-on for a stove-top coffee pot and a reusable coffee cup designed for McDonald's – see all designs for coffee.

See all kitchenware »
See all projects about food »

Here's some more information from Lunar Europe:

Piamo is the first espresso maker worldwide that works in the microwave. Piamo creates a fresh cup of delicious espresso within 30 seconds. Whether you prefer pads or ground coffee, Piamo can do both.

Simply fill in water and insert an espresso pad or ground coffee. Stack it, flip it and place Piamo in your microwave. Now your microwave does all the magic: due to heating pressure builds up and makes the water run through the coffee, creating your fresh espresso straight into your cup. Piamo is available through crowdfunding. Piamo supporters can secure their piece starting at 40 euros for early bird supporters.

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and Lunar Europe appeared first on Dezeen.

WertelOberfell designed Eggwave in collaboration with Tobias Schmidt from appliance-maker Neff.

The egg tray comprises two interlocking layers, one in white plastic and the other transparent, which can be clipped in three positions to store six, eight or ten eggs.

"It was a bit of work to get the rippled surface right," said designer Jan Wertel. "We initially tried to digitally generate it, but it still needed a lot of 'manual' work in the CAD software, so it was almost like digital sculpting."

The first Eggwave trays have a translucent red plastic layer, as pictured below in the story, but the final version will use clear plastic.

WertelOberfell was founded in 2007 by Gernot Oberfell and Jan Wertel, both former students of Industrial Design at the State Academy of Arts in Stuttgart.

We previously published on a table by WertelOberfell that mimics fractal growth patterns found in nature.

Other eggy projects we've featured on Dezeen include a bread roll baked to hold a boiled egg and an exhibition in Liverpool where visitors were invited to roll eggs down seven timber follies.

See all our stories about kitchenware »
See all our stories about products »

Here's some more information from the designers:

Eggwave is an accessory for storing eggs in the fridge. It has been designed for Neff by WertelOberfell, in collaboration with Tobias Schmidt of Neff in-house design, and is shipped with all new Neff fridges. It consists of two undulating, interlocking layers, one in white plastic with a surface structure, the other transparent, that can be clipped onto the base in three positions to allow the storing of six, eight or ten eggs.

The aim was to give an ordinary everyday product that costs only a few cents in production and often gets thrown away, an almost sculptural quality whilst retaining and improving its functionality over its predecessor.

Eggwave demonstrates that a relatively uninteresting product typology can become quite exciting. It embodies our digital design process and shows that "digital design", which is kind of a synonym for crazy shapes, can become a mass-produced mainstream product that has an almost invisible serving function.

The dimensions are 90 X 220 X 35 mm.

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for Neff appeared first on Dezeen.

Sudjic focuses on Christopher Dresser's soup ladle, Arne Jacobsen’s Cylinda Line and Dry Flatware designed by Achille Castiglioni.

See all the movies filmed for the Design Museum Collection App »
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Here are some excerpts from the app:

Soup ladle (above)

After a visit to Japan, as an official representative of the British Government, the designer Christopher Dresser changed his ideas about design. From being principally concerned with ornament, he decided that form was enough to entertain and please the eye. He now believed ornament can distract from, rather than enhance, form. Dresser’s 1879 soup ladle owes much to the simplicity and elegance of Japanese design.

Dresser worked at a time when designers aimed to raise the aesthetic standard of objects that surrounded people in their everyday life. These standards were considered to be low, mainly because of industrial production at the time. While many designers tried to return to pre-industrial styles of manufacturing, Dresser accepted modern industrial methods and pioneered new industrial techniques such as electroplating. However, although he designed goods that could, in theory, be made by machines, Dresser only used such technologies to realise a variety of effects. Despite its machined appearance, this soup ladle could only ever have been made by hand.

Cylinder Line (above)

Designed in 1967, Arne Jacobsen’s Cylinda Line series of tableware for Danish company Stelton is the last word in minimalism. Originally sketched on a napkin in 1964, it nonetheless took three years before the technology was sufficiently advanced to produce Jacobsen’s design. Jacobsen insisted on seamless tubes with perfect, brushed surfaces and originally envisaged using standard steel pipes. This proved too costly, so instead stainless steel sheets were bent and welded, then brushed in an industrial process that left no traces of welding.

Jacobsen’s partnership with Stelton, run by his stepson Peter Holmblad, continued until 1971. In this time, he added new pieces to the collection, including items such as a cocktail shaker, a martini mixer, an ice bucket with tongs and a serving tray. Based on differing variations of cylindrical shapes, the basic idea was to create a line of tableware where there would always be a correlation between individual items to create harmonious table settings.

Dry Flatware (above)

Dry Flatware, designed in 1982 by one of the most important industrial designers of the twentieth century, Achille Castiglioni was the first cutlery range produced by Alessi. Its innovative shape, and resolute style, along with extreme manageability and an excellent finish has kept the range as one of their best-selling products.

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kitchenware appeared first on Dezeen.