Coffee sensory experimental center and themed aparthotel, Timișoara, Romania

Authors’ Comment

The project proposes the development of a cultural and experimental center dedicated to coffee in Timișoara, a city whose history is closely connected to the evolution of this product and to the legacy of Francesco Illy, an inventor and entrepreneur born here, founder of the illy brand and author of innovations that significantly influenced modern methods of coffee preparation and preservation.
Located in a central area, near the North Railway Station, the Bega Canal and Central Park, the project aims to activate a key point along the route connecting the railway station to the historic city center. The intervention explores the site’s potential to become both a destination in itself and an active sequence within the urban journey, contributing to the functional and cultural diversification of the area.
The concept approaches coffee not merely as a consumer product, but as a cultural, social and sensory phenomenon. The center brings together exhibition, experimentation, education, production and social interaction within a single architectural ensemble, creating a journey that follows coffee from raw material to cultural object and element of identity. The program includes museum and exhibition spaces, immersive and sensory installations, a specialty coffee shop, laboratory and roastery, a publicly accessible production area, workshop spaces, a library, coworking areas, multifunctional rooms, retail spaces and gastronomic functions.
The visitor experience becomes the core of the project. The spaces are designed to successively stimulate sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch, transforming the visit into a process of discovery. Coffee production and preparation are not concealed within strictly technical areas, but become part of the architectural scenography and the public experience.
The complex is complemented by a themed aparthotel, which extends the experience of the center and introduces accommodation into a mixed-use system that remains active throughout the day. The two components are connected through walkways and shared spaces, while internal courtyards introduce natural light, vegetation and transitional areas between the different functions.
Architecturally, the project adopts a contemporary language defined by clear volumes and a neutral material palette, allowing the experiential character of the interior to take precedence. The transparency of selected areas reveals the building’s activities to the city, while the alternation between open, controlled and immersive spaces establishes the rhythm of the visitor journey.
The project therefore becomes more than a center dedicated to coffee: it is a place of memory, experimentation and community, recovering an identity-based connection between Timișoara and coffee culture and reinterpreting it through a contemporary program open to the city.