The Coffee Landscape, a project developed by CRA and Rhea in collaboration with architect Italo Rota, is a composite coffee station for offices that transforms coffee making from a solitary activity – in which individuals gravitate away from people and towards the machine – into one where colleagues face each other and interact.

The Coffee Landscape took shape as offices around the world underwent a pandemic-induced identity shift. While more companies have adopted a hybrid working scheme, the physical workplace remains an integral part of the work experience. A new approach to office design puts additional emphasis on in-person, serendipitous conversations, which are crucial not only for fostering personal relationships but for generating innovative and meaningful ideas.

It is an open-plan coffee station with three dispensing outlets surrounded by modular triangular poufs of variable height and position, so that coworkers face each other as they select, dispense, and enjoy their coffee. The organic arrangement of the modules echoes the ebb and flow of natural terrain, which by extension encourages the flow of conversation, ideas, and friendships.

“How can we rethink the social experience around coffee? This project experiments with new ways to increase what we might call the ‘coffee-machine effect’: bringing people together and letting them interact with each other.” – Carlo Ratti.

“The collaboration started by putting ourselves in the office workers’ shoes and asking ourselves, what would the ideal coffee break be like? With this in mind, we managed to harness Italy’s design legacy, and our 60 years of industrial experience, to realize a sound and forward-looking design.”

COFFEE LANDSCAPE – THE MAKING OF
Preparing and enjoying coffee together opens up the space to conviviality, to the beauty and pleasure of coffee and relationships. This is Coffee Landscape.