Three vending machines fashioned from stone — and doling out slabs of porcelain — will be dotted around central London later this May.
As part of Clerkenwell Design Week — which runs from 20-22 May 2025 — Italian stoneware company Italgraniti will install 'Automatica', a threesome of vending machines, outside Farringdon station, Old Sessions House and inside Church of Design at St Bartholomew the Great. To use the machines, and acquire a free porcelain tile sample (which could make a nifty coaster), simply collect a free token from the Solus showroom on Clerkenwell Road.
If you were hoping that the vending machine might dispense, say, candy or hot drinks rather than slabs of stone, know that for the duration of the three-day festival, at 30 Clerkenwell Road, you'll also find the Beasley's Biscuit Bar pop-up — which is offering free tea and biscuits (10.30pm-12pm, and 3pm-4.30pm each day). What's this got to do with design? The pop-up is a recreation of London's first biscuit bar, established on this spot in the 1940s as a makeshift enterprise inside a shopfitter's workshop. As well as munching on free biccies, you can watch sustainable Carl Clerkin and Alex Hellum-designed furniture being made.
Elsewhere during Clerkenwell Design Week, there are various installations and talks to get stuck into — check out the programme.
Clerkenwell Design Week, 20-22 May 2025
