Greenbox Barista
2020 | Coffee Machine
How do you like your coffee to be made? With Greenbox Barista Cream on Chrome tentatively calls upon the tactile joys in user experience again. Brewing coffee with the machine involves people in every step of the process, which the machine is glad to help with. This includes both manual actions from the user, as well as automated ones from Greenbox Barista – resulting not only in fresh, tasty coffee, but also a fun, collaborative experience between apparatus and visitors.
In an increasingly automated world, people are less and less in touch with the inner workings of their devices, may they be smart phones, self driving cars – or coffee machines. But is convenience really all that we strive for when interacting with technology? Did our curiosity and desire to open the blackbox fade away? When making coffee together, Greenbox Barista invites the user to participate in the process of making, by letting them turn its wheel to grind coffee beans or to pump up water using a manual pump. The beverage is free and meant to be shared with others: one carafe yields three cups. Greenbox Barista introduces a playful responsibility on the one hand by encouraging the user to play an active part in the production (and also in the disposal) of their coffee. On the other hand the machine has a very responsive nature, reacting to one’s actions and communicating what it is doing through arcade-inspired light elements.
This machine was commissioned by z33 – House for Contemporary Arts, Design and Architecture.
Electrical engineer: Pim Swinkels