The world’s first 3D-printed pasta has won Italy’s most prestigious design award with a project that redefines the boundaries between food, technology, and design.
Milan, May 22, 2026 - Spaghetto 3D is a lateral-thinking project that reimagines pasta as edible micro-architecture. Unexpected, exquisite, spectacular. Designed to be picked up with the fingers and enjoyed in a single gesture. It takes shape from a thin strand of fresh pasta measuring 6.727 meters in length which, through an additive manufacturing process, is transformed into a complex and surprising three-dimensional structure. Spaghetto 3D has been engineered down to the smallest detail to ensure that the dough, made only from water and high-quality semolina, remains stable during extrusion, withstands the drying phase, and preserves its shape and texture during cooking. Its compact and harmonious nest-like form was designed to hold sauce and enhance the tasting experience.
The Design
The design originates from the ellipse traced in space by the prongs of a fork while twirling spaghetti: an everyday gesture transformed into an algorithm. During development, a slight sagging of the strand during the printing phase created small arches within the structure. Rather than correcting it, the team embraced it as part of the design, allowing the behavior of the material itself to become form. The 3D printer developed and patented by Artisia represents a key innovation in its own right: an engineered system capable of producing pasta shapes impossible to achieve using traditional artisanal or industrial methods. For example, Spaghetto 3D is the first 3D-printed pasta format created as a suspended strand without supports, pushing the material to the limit between design control and the natural behavior of the dough.
A New Experience of Tasting
From this encounter between engineering, craftsmanship, and computational design emerges a design object capable of speaking about table culture, Made in Italy, art, and conviviality.
“Receiving the Compasso d’Oro is a great honor. Spaghetto 3D embodies years of research and development carried out internally by the team. It is a project born from the daily work of those who design, experiment, and build it, but also from those who cook it, plate it, and ultimately taste it,” comments Antonio Gagliardi, Design & Technology Lead at Artisia.
“Spaghetto 3D is the result of a gastronomic tradition that renews itself and also offers the opportunity to rethink pasta beyond pasta itself. Ideal for aperitifs, amuse-bouche, and finger food, it expands the potential of Italy’s most beloved food far beyond the concept of a first course,” adds Valentina Parravicini, Business Leader of Artisia.
Thus, a new spaghetti experience is born: immediate, designed to be picked up with the fingers and enjoyed in a single bite. An essential gesture that creates new consumption rituals. This innovation is not only about design, but also gastronomy. A micro-architecture conceived to disappear in a few moments, yet capable of leaving a lasting impression. A design object that unites form, function, and pleasure in a single mission: simply to be beautiful and delicious. With Spaghetto 3D, design is no longer only something to look at. It is cooked. It is tasted. And it is remembered.
