Milan Design Week kicks off today, and it brings design-focused brands and innovators from around the world to the Italian city. And so it should come as no surprise that La Marzocco will not only be in attendance but be an active participant. The Florentine espresso machine manufacturer will be teaming up with Design Boom, who is curating the week’s festivities, to takeover the ME Milan Il Duca hotel for Room for Dreams, an “immersive platform where installations, talks, and cinema come together to explore design as a tool for cultural and social transformation.”
Already the week is stacked. It kicks off today with a talk titled Temporary Dreamscapes: Immersive Realities as Prototypes for Alternate Futures. Featured panelists include Paul Kelly (La Marzocco), Samir Bantal (AMO/OMA), David Mahyari (SolidNature), Christopher Dessus (Paf atelier), and Sofia Lekka Angelopoulou (designboom), the talk will focus on how design events like Milan Design Week construct “entire worlds… only to disappear days later” and how they may be more akin to experimental theaters, “spaces where emotional, symbolic, and sensory futures are tested before taking permanent form.”
Then, the following day, Room for Design goes into full coffee mode, with La Marzocco’s Accademia del Caffe Espresso presenting Coffee Portraits. Each day for the rest of the week, a new roaster will take over La Marzocco’s coffee cart at ME Milan Il Duca and serve one of their coffees that best represents a specific aromatic family. Roasters in attendance will be La Sosta Specialty Coffee, Cafezal, Il Manovale, Oltre, and Garage Coffee Bros.
But perhaps the most exciting news coming out of the weekend, at least for those unable to make it to Milan, is the announcement of a new line of colorways for the La Marzocco home line of espresso machines and grinders. The Linea Mini and Linea Micra espresso machines as well as the Pico grinder are getting three exciting new color options. Coming in a neutral crème color, a deep and saturated blue, and a brushed steel—a nod to the original La Marzocco Linea—bring a new look to the home favorites. (The Pico will not come in the brushed steel variant.)
The latest color options will all be on display at ME Milan Il Duca during Milan Design Week.
All events are free to attend and registration can be done here. For more information on the installations visit the Accademia del Caffe Espresso official website and the Milan Design Week Instagram page.
Zac Cadwalader is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.
