Dezeen promotion: an exhibition of products for the garden designed by students from Rotterdam's Piet Zwart Institute will take place at the Ventura Lambrate design district in Milan later this month.

Top: Brick Biotope by Micaela Nardella and Oana Tudose
Above: Blindfolded by Anette Backe and Dominika Dyminska

Students from the Master of Interior Architecture & Retail Design programme were asked to explore traditional craft processes in their designs.

Working in teams, they learned specific techniques such as cutting, knitting, weaving and moulding, before applying these to products that reconsider the role of the garden.

Micaela Nardella and Oana Tudose's Brick Biotope is made from sand and plaster and offers a nesting space for birds in the built environment.

Angelique Etman and Marie Gade-Lundlie have used weaving and crochet techniques combined with hardening resin to create cocoon-like furniture.

HERB² by Mariann Hildal and Milda Liubinskaite is a wall of interconnected herb planters for indoor use with a manual pulley system that allows the position of the units to be adjusted to control light exposure and ventilation.

Anette Backe and Dominika Dyminska have created an accordion-like wooden structure that can provide shelter from sun, wind or rain using simple cutting and scoring techniques.

Material experimentation by Angelique Etman and Marie Gade-Lundlie

Exhibition: Tuesday 17 April – Sunday 22 April, 10.00-22.00 hrs
Cocktail Party Tuesday April 17, 16:00-19:00 hrs
Location: Ventura Lambrate, 
Via Massimiano 6
, 20134 Milan

Here is some more information from the Piet Zwart Institute:

What is FABRIKAAT?

FABRIKAAT is an exhibition at Ventura Lambrate 2012 investigating the re-emerging role of the garden through a “research through making” approach to design and craft. In a digitally saturated world, this body of work celebrates and promotes research, ideas and the nuances of making by hand.

The work exhibited was made during an intensive three-month thematic design studio with integrated seminar and media courses, by students in the Master of Interior Architecture & Retail Design program at the Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The spirit of FABRIKAAT became an integral part of the culture, programming and deployment of the courses during this period.

Material experimentation by Angelique Etman and Marie Gade-Lundlie

FABRIKAAT approached the idea of craft by asking the following questions:

By embracing a bottom-up “research through making” approach to design, can new material behaviors and applications emerge? In our digital age, what can be learned through the process of making by hand? Can design solutions be offered that augment existing typologies in our built environment, such as the garden?

Craft was the inspiration for the design project on two fronts.  First, historical examples of craft were researched and analyzed, particularly Dutch crafts, as a source of inspiration.  Secondly, the principles of the crafts investigated formed the strategy for the development of the individual projects.  The studio was programmed into four categories: historical reference, fabrication techniques, materials, and application.

Rendering of Blindfolded by Anette Backe and Dominika Dyminska

Students worked in teams and became experts in specific techniques such as cutting/folding, knitting/weaving, molding, and cutting/scoring. They spent extensive periods of time in rigorous, unadulterated experimentation mode - exploring materials, their behavior, techniques and applications. This process informed the design parameters for the development of the investigations and full-scale projects.

The exhibition is named after the Dutch word Fabrikaat that means to make by hand.

www.pzwart.wdka.nl/interior-architecture