POP-UP KITCHEN.
As-Found Mobile Cooking Devices.

Pop-Up Kitchen is a project developed as a spatial and social device based on the design and construction of mobile kitchen modules assembled exclusively from as-found materials. The project operates at the intersection of making, reuse, and collective action, using food as a shared language to interweave temporary forms of neighbourhood.

The work was carried out with BA Design students, who designed and built five mobile cooking modules through hands-on experimentation. The process emphasized direct engagement with material reality: students learned to weld, screw, cut, adapt, and assemble components while relying on what could be found, reused, or repurposed. Equally important was the ability to reach out—for materials, support, skills, and collaboration—transforming the act of building into a collective practice.

The kitchen modules functioned as mobile infrastructures for encounter. Supported by the IKEA Stiftung Zurich, a series of eat and meet events were organized in collaboration with the Food Waste Zurich community. During these events, different forms of nomadic bread were prepared and shared, including farinata, piadina, injera, samuna, focaccia, and others. Cooking and eating became moments of intercultural exchange, where diverse traditions met through a common, material practice.

Rather than producing finished objects, the project established a set of operative devices capable of generating social situations. The mobile kitchens were conceived to move, adapt, and be reused in different contexts, extending their function beyond the initial events.

The kitchen modules were designed and built by BA Design students of the Zurich University of the Arts, mentored by Clemens Winkler and Antonio Scarponi. The cooking devices are now part of the social design resources of Hic et Nunc at the FOGO Areal, continuing their activation within new settings.

Expose — making and material reuse are brought into visibility as collective and situated practices.
Mediate — food and cooking operate as shared interfaces, enabling the transfer of knowledge across cultural and social boundaries.
Activate — mobile kitchen devices generate temporary neighbourhoods by creating conditions for encounter, collaboration, and use.