Channelbeta - Projects - Tea&Cofee

From 1979 to 1983 Alessi launched a memorable design, architectural and sperimental challenge for new domestic objects called Te&Coffee Piazza.

Design because it was about design, considering the scale and function of the objects, architectural because all the designer invited were architects that never tried to design a piece of industrial design and sperimental since the final product came out to be surprising as well as unique.

Twenty years later. Alessi launch again the very same challenge to, once again, eleven architects. Future Systems is part of it.

Alessi and Tea&Coffee Piazza II together they scare and convey a great sense of responsibility and ability to collect the deep heritage left from the first edition.

We start to work on it later then other designers, and actually this has forced us to speed up the entire process, with a compact and fast pace, while we were witnessing our pieces growing really fast under our eyes.

Jan since from the beginning decides for the glass as the material to adopdet for the objects, a material able to reveal the full intense colour of the coffee or the pale shade of a Chinese jasmine tea. Difficult and brave choice, since we were leaving the beaten track marked from Alessi as far as the metal craftsmanship is concerned.

In the beginning, all the prototypes that we work on are made ot of high density foam, ideal for rapid prototyping, despite the ambiguous pink colour.

Once we have frozen the shape, we start with the 3D digital modelling. From this model Alessi will engineer the graphite moulds necessary for the glass blowing.

Now, all of a sudden the project becomes light and ethereal, unveiling a new identity otherwise impossible to discover in the solid opaque foam models.

It's simply extraordinary, and it reminds me of Calvino, when in his book he talks about the lightness and heaviness in such a way that can be applied in any art fields, even in the design scale.

Meanwhile the digital "reconstruction" takes place, Jan and I are invited to attend a sort of private workshop in a glass company specialised in borosilicate glass. Of course not far off from Venice.

Many things are not coming together and many decisions are now taken together with the guy that blows the glass. On a cheap disposable paper table cloth we sketch any ideas, details and sections that are coming out from the new scenario.

I think that table cloth is somewhere inside the Alessi Museum.

Glass is an extraordinary material, hard to control and forgives with parsimony.

It requires years before one can understand the way it works, it melts and it bends. Now more then ever we are close to the final product, although I think a project can never be finished completely, even when it is bough off the shelf.

Together with glass we are researching for a material able to play with the tact, precisely where the all the objects will interface with hands and fingers. Eventually we adopted a soft touch rubber, very stimulating to handle. Also it will provide an adequate thermal break to avoid unpleasant burnings, due to the glass high heat transmission coefficient.

In the time span of a year I believe we produced the very same amount of drawings, details and sections that we do normally produce for a medium sized job. Simply amazing. Amazing is also that at the end of this journey none of our objects can be directly identified with our architecture, although in it's transparency our manifesto comes out clearly.

Our set, together will all the others is officially presented for the first tome to the press in Aril 2003 in the Triennale building, together with the Tea&Coffee Towers. That one is another project….

Andrea Morgante