The Piet Zwart Institute Brings Alternative Appliances to the Kitchen

The Pier Zwart Institute based in Rotterdam is a post-graduate institute specializing in art, media, and design studies and research. Students from the Masters of Interior Architecture & Retail Design (MIARD) Programme recently completed and presented their ‘ALTERED APPLIANCES’ project, the goal of which was to explore how common kitchen appliances could be re-purposed to open new creative possibilities.

First presented during Milan Design Week earlier this year, sustainability was certainly on the minds of the students as they worked.

For example, while ROLLWARE’s laser-cut rolling pins might seem like an innovative albeit purely decorative concept, the end goal for the set of carefully designed tools was actually to make disposable (i.e. through eating) dishes for other foods. Similarly, EXTRUDOUGH uses a re-purposed meat grinder to extrude dough to form biodegradable baskets and other dishes.