This piece is a part of Food Tools Design Club, a series of monthly open design calls that invite the MOLD community to experiment, play, and submit designs for food tools.
For the second open call of MOLD Magazine’s Food Tool Design Club we asked you to submit designs for a Picnic. Our community answered with innovative projects that reimagined what it means to eat and gather outdoors. From a wearable picnic table cloth for dining duos on the go to candleabras you can stake in the grass, we’ve got a few of our favorites to showcase here.
Hier(hin)?/Where to?
Contributor: Meret Behnke, Janek Beau, Fabian Bastert
A simple prompt to “pick this up and help to carry it” kicks off this performative collective eating experience, designed, built and enjoyed during a one-week workshop. The designers join the participants and the participants decide where to go, when to stop and when to leave. Made from discarded and surplus materials at the workshop to bring to life a collective stroll, picnic, ritual and space with uncertain location, duration and dynamic. A dramatically elongated and oversized table, benches, basket and trays as well trust in collective behaviors are the proposed tool for this happening.
Suitcase Kitchen
Contributor: Breanne Johnson
Suitcase Kitchen is a kitchen that packs up into a standard suitcase so that it can be mobile and transitory. The Suitcase Kitchen takes the domestic symbolism of the kitchen as an anchor for a sense of “home” and the ability to host or provide care through nourishment, and distills that sense into an object. It is a practical opportunity for a mobile sense of routine and community maintenance.
Flower-Safe Blanket
Contributor: Camila Giraldo
A picnic blanket with custom-made openings that align with the existing flowers beneath it. The wildflowers quietly peek through the cloth, undisturbed, and decorate the picnic. The object is designed with its surroundings in mind, respecting what is already there.
matjes Collection
Contributor: Annika Joachim & Mona Schmidt
The matjes collection celebrates a classic outdoor tool: the tent peg. In this collection, it is transformed into playful picnic accessories. Whether used as cutlery or to set the scene for a romantic candelight dinner, the series has many facets.
Wearable Picnic
Contributor: Amanda Huynh
Wearable Picnic makes spontaneous picnics easy—whether you’re solo or with a friend. Made from lightweight knit cotton, it can be worn as a vest or an apron dress and comes with single or double place settings. Simply unfold it whenever and wherever a picnic feels right.
