Milan 2013: a coffee table topped with a giant hard-boiled sweet and a white chocolate chair are among items in a series of edible furniture by design studio Lanzavecchia + Wai (+ slideshow).

Designed in response to the current economic climate, the decorative or unnecessary elements of the furniture can be eaten until all that's left is what's needed for basic functionality. Lanzavecchia + Wai used a range of food types to build up each item around its pared-down black iron version.

The Hard Candy coffee table has a top made from a huge hard-boiled sweet that leaves one saucer at the end of each leg after it has been nibbled away.

Twenty-four kilograms of white chocolate was formed around a stool to create the Chocolate chair.

Rice bricks glued together with starch form a backrest for a bench, draped with a cotton quilt full of dried beans.

A table top baked into a cracker balances on stacked tins of corned beef, which can be removed as the table is munched to leave a simple tray.

The pieces were shown as part of a series of food-based projects at the Padiglione Italia's Foodmade exhibition, located in the Ventura Lambrate district of Milan.

Another cuisine-related exhibition in Milan featured patterned rolling pins that made edible plates and a meat grinder that squeezed out biodegradable bowls.

We've previously featured tableware and a desk lamp that can be eaten.

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Lanzavecchia + Wai sent us the information below:

The domestic landscape reflects our culture, our taste and our habits. The objects that populate it absorb the atmosphere that pervades the space through their physicality, functionality and identity.

Ostensibly living intact through good times and also adverse ones, the domestic objects become invisible to us over time with their familiarity.

How can furniture react to times of crisis? The decorational elements that were once appreciated, suddenly become superfluous and should evolve to reflect a new era of austerity; the objects become edible and offer themselves to be consumed when needed.

In four conceptual objects, Lanzavecchia + Wai repropose basic nutrients, carbohydrates, proteins, sugar and chocolate as food reserves which at the same time complement and finish the objects by covering elemental metal structures.

Piece by piece the object is eroded, exposing a soul, the core-function, which will remain over time. This will encourage us to re-think what basic necessities are: a true reflection on the essence of the things that will lead us into the future.

The Austerity collection consists of Hard Candy coffee table, Chocolate chair, Grains sofa and Hardtack table.