Alfredo Häberli Design Development

The idea of this concept kitchen was to raise many questions; some important and some less so, some rational and some intuitive. Questions capable of evoking new themes and new typologies. Questions to help us understand that the kitchen is the soul of the home. This is why we have created this «concept kitchen», in a manner of speaking, as the backbone of the home. The architecture of the stand reconstructs a house where every room or dividing wall always leads to the kitchen, irrespective of how you enter. After all, was the hearth not the very first kitchen? Perhaps for centuries the wooden table was the focal point of this space, the worktop where everything was done? I see the kitchen as a workshop, or even as a laboratory. It’s a place where one works and experiments with one’s craft.

Why does water flow endlessly from the tap? Are we aware of where it comes from? How much water do we need for each meal? The water tank is perhaps the same idea, and isn’t it an image that shows us the value of fresh water? The water source, a stone fountain, was the central point of every village. How do we use our sink today? And when we cook? Where does the light come from? And where do odours linger? It always surprises me, when I walk through a market, how much it stimulates my desire to cook. Thousands of ideas come to mind – images, smells, sounds and colours. What if I had a vertical shelf, where all these ingredients could pass in front of my eyes like a film? Couldn’t I just stretch out my hand to take what I wanted? And what if my supplies arrived every day in an Ape van? The large shelf represents the fresh produce grown by a farmer somewhere in Italy. The Ape van wouldn’t need to carry the Schiffini trademark. Even if it were just white it would be a dream.

As a designer, I can also be inspired by a knife or a copper frying pan. I usually associate copper with the kitchen; its heat, colour and patina which we no longer accept today – like that which rests on us all: the patina of age. What do I want to conceal and what do I want to reveal? And to whom? Today we need spaces and volumes as containers. Why don’t we store things up high? Do we still iron in the kitchen? Or did this only happen because we had to optimise the kitchen space? The kitchen really is the soul of the home! I truly believe it and this concept kitchen is the first step in the direction of this theme which, in one way or another, touches us all.