03 · Objects · Prototype · 1998
Alchimia
A coffee machine built on the four classical elements — fire, wood, water and air — with the heat itself moving the water through a visible glass vessel.
- Discipline
- Objects
- Status
- Prototype
- Year
- 1998
- Materials
Plywood surroundConfirmed
Glass vesselUnder consideration
Metal control blockUnder consideration
Metal tray insertUnder consideration
The idea
Fire, wood, water and air, doing the work.
The project takes the Aristotelian elements literally rather than symbolically. Fire is the heat source, water is the coffee, air is the pressure the heat creates, and wood is the body that holds all three. Nothing is added to that list.
Heating alone moves the water: as it warms, it rises and flows through the vessel, so the brewing is driven by temperature rather than by a pump. That is why the vessel is glass — the process is the object's only moving part, and it is left visible.
Form
One formed surface around a transparent centre.
The plywood body is formed as a single continuous surface, wrapping from one foot up over the machine and down to the other. Bending it rather than assembling panels keeps the silhouette unbroken and lets the wood read as the warm, quiet part of the object.
The glass sphere sits at the centre of that curve. Beside it, a metal block carries the controls and cantilevers over a recessed tray where the cup stands.
How it works and how it is made
- Wood
- A formed plywood surround standing on two curved feet, the structure and the finish in one.
- Water
- Held in a spherical glass vessel, kept visible rather than enclosed.
- Fire and air
- Heat drives the water's flow through the vessel; no pump is involved.
- Controls
- A metal block carrying the dials, cantilevered over the tray.
- Tray
- A recessed base surface where the cup stands.
A machine can show what it holds instead of hiding it.
Studies and details
Closing note
Selected in an inter-university competition for the Finnish market, prototyped, and exhibited at the Sociedade Nacional de Belas Artes in Lisbon.