As 3D printing has become more accessible a wealth of new and adventurous home products have emerged. Due to their small scale and decorative function, vessels and vases have been the most popular product with which to test and experiment with the rapidly-advancing technology’s capabilities. Here we round up five of the most impressive designs to date.

New York-based Italian designers Barbara Busatta and Dario Buzzini have created the ‘Machine Series‘ – a set of tableware pieces with carefully considered shapes, proportions, and surface finishes that can be printed out at home on a desktop 3D-printer and used straight away.

Italian designer Giuseppe Bessero has combined 3D printed nylon vessels with reclaimed paraffin lamp chimneys to create one-of-a-kind vases called ‘Experimenta’.

Inspired by the Japanese art of origami, French designer Michaël Malapert has created a series of 3D-printed wireframe vessels called the ‘Darkside’ collection. The vessels’ faceted shapes are the result of running archetypal forms – a vase, plate, pencil holder candle holder and desktop container – through a digital program that reduces them to a graphic skeleton.

Designer Matthew Plummer Fernandez designed his ‘Digital Natives’ vases using custom-made algorithm software that stretches and distorts the shape of everyday objects into new forms. He then 3D printed them from colourless sand particles and tinted resin line.

The ribbed surfaces of Greek designer Yiannis Ghikas‘ 3D-printed ‘Mutant’ vases are inspired by science fiction special effects that show creatures moving under a person’s skin.