In contrast to its live-demo, let’s-put-on-a-show “Craft Punk” exhibition last year, Design Miami and Fendi’s 2010 collaboration, “Design Vertigo,” at Spazio Fendi, is a far more cerebral affair.

Four site-specific installations aim to highlight the ways in which designers are venturing outside the bounds of traditional practice and joining forces with unlikely partners.

The result is poetically surprising, when Fendi in collaboration with Design Miami led by Ambra Medda let four creative minds loose in an ex-industrial space: The optical games of Michele Gauler and Eyal Burstein, together with Beta Tank, the fellini-esque scaffolding from Graham Hudson, the optical illusion of Felice Varini and the led created by Hannes Koch together with the group Random International, together creating a fabulous atmosphere.

Felice Varini’s anamorphic perspective painting

On the outside of the building, one of the Swiss artist Felice Varini’s anamorphic perspective paintings comes together only when seen from a specific vantage point.

Inside, Random International’s interactive “two-and-a-half-dimensional” light installation plays with viewers’ depth perception.

“An Insignificant Extension in Space and a Considerable Extension in Time,” by Graham Hudson. Graham Hudson’s rather cryptic contribution — which looks like a big piece of scaffolding with an internal stairway and contains vintage Fendi furs worn in films by Madonna and Gwyneth Paltrow — serves as both observation deck and exhibition space.

“An Insignificant Extension in Space and a Considerable Extension in Time,” by Graham Hudson.

The Berlin design studio Beta Tank’s black-and-white, op-art-patterned installation features large inflatable balls that roll and bounce, and optical illusions that pose questions about human perception — what is “real” and what isn’t. As a whole, Design Vertigo is fun and occasionally challenging, but its boundary-breaking properties are sometimes hard to read without a guide.