 He experimented in industrial design in the 1970s with a 500-piece run of the upscale "Suomi" tableware by Timo Sarpaneva that Piene decorated for the German Rosenthal porcelain maker's "Studio Linie".Working as the director of the CAVS at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Piene collaborated in the design of the kinetic sculpture performance "Centerbeam" first exhibited in Kassel, Germany in 1977.Later mounted on the National Mall in Washington DC, it featured laser-projected images on moving screens of steam, solar-tracked 3-D holograms, a water prism, and helium-buoyed sky sculptures.