name: Convivio
client: Cleanup
date: April 2014
project assistant: Alessandro Stabile

“Cocking lunch and dinner together, preparing family meals and then sitting all together around the table: these are all attitudes that best express the essence of living together, precisely what convivio, or feast, means.”

Kitchen and table are the physical and emotional spaces around which the Italian family and home revolve. But this organizational model of the kitchen (and family life) can be easily exported. Indeed, after the tsunami that recently hit Japan we have been witnessing a sort of return to solidarity between individuals, while families feel the need for a place to unite and share words, food, thoughts and affection.

This is the idea expressed by Giulio Iacchetti in his experimental kitchen project for Cleanup, a Japanese company.

Central to this kitchen is an isle featuring a top with a hob, a sink and a filtering hood that when needed can be transformed into a large table around which up to ten people can sit. With a simple manual control or a smartphone app the table can be raised from 75 to 95 cm, while at the same time part of the top (or the hood) is raised to cover the sink and the hob. The vertical telescopic movement also makes it easy for wheelchair users to join the feast.