Contemporary Kitchen Cabinet AK 08
Arrital Kitchen
AkB_08 – Professional and Practical
Arrital AKB_08: The Italian Kitchen Cabinet System Born in a Michelin-Starred Kitchen
What happens when one of Italy’s most celebrated architects sits down with one of Italy’s most decorated Michelin-starred chefs — not for dinner, but to design a kitchen together? The answer is the Arrital AKB_08: the world’s first domestic kitchen cabinet system conceived from the ground up through the dual lens of haute cuisine performance and Italian design mastery.
Winner of the Good Design Award 2016, the Regula Award 2017, and an Honourable Mention at the prestigious Compasso d’Oro ADI — Italy’s most coveted design prize, now part of the permanent Compasso d’Oro Collection — the AKB_08 is not simply one of the finest expressions of Italian kitchen cabinets available today. It is a genuinely new category of kitchen: one that performs at the level a professional demands, looks the way only Italian design can make it look, and lives the way a California home deserves.
Available exclusively in California through Tredi Interiors, the AKB_08 is the kitchen for people who take both cooking and design with absolute seriousness — and refuse to choose between them.
The Collaboration That Changed Kitchen Design: Driusso Meets Berton
To understand the AKB_08, you need to understand the extraordinary partnership that created it — because no other kitchen collection in the world was made this way.
Architect Franco Driusso, Creative Director of Arrital and the designer behind every collection in this series, brought to the project four decades of expertise in Italian cabinet engineering, material science, and the spatial logic of residential design. Chef Andrea Berton — one of Italy’s most acclaimed culinary figures, a Michelin-starred chef whose restaurant at the top of Milan’s Torre Solaria represents the apex of Italian contemporary gastronomy — brought something entirely different: the exacting, uncompromising requirements of a professional who prepares hundreds of covers per service and knows, with precision, exactly what a kitchen must do to make that possible.
The collaboration was absolute. Both Driusso and Berton worked together on every single aspect of the design — not as designer and advisor, but as genuine co-creators, each contributing expertise that the other could not supply. The name of the collection encodes this partnership: AKB_08 stands for Arrital Kitchen Berton_08, where the “B” acknowledges Chef Berton not as a testimonial but as a full co-author of the design.
The result — presented for the first time at Eurocucina 2016 in Milan and immediately recognized with the Good Design Award — introduced entirely new paradigms to European kitchen design: a domestic kitchen whose organizational logic, appliance selection, workflow efficiency, and ergonomic decisions were all filtered through the judgment of someone who has spent a professional lifetime in pursuit of culinary perfection.
“I am grateful to Arrital for involving me in this project, which has come up with a product that squares the functionality needs of professional kitchens with domestic contexts, thus reaching out to the increasingly-felt needs of cooking enthusiasts.”
— Chef Andrea Berton
The Floating Core Door: Where Origami Meets Engineering
As with every Arrital collection, the AKB_08’s identity begins with its door — and the door of the AKB_08 is one of the most conceptually distinctive in the history of Italian cabinet design.
Driusso called the solution the “Floating Core” — a framed door concept that evolves directly from the aluminium frame language of the AK_04, but takes it in an entirely new direction. The frame of the AKB_08 door is engineered to appear as if it is floating, suspended — the aesthetic lightness of origami combined with the structural solidity of an aluminium frame. The visual effect is one of apparent weightlessness: a door that seems to hover rather than rest, that reads as thin and architecturally precise from across the room, yet reveals its robust construction when examined at close range.
The Floating Core frame is available in two finishes — Ardesia (a refined dark slate tone) and Bianco (a pure white) — both chosen for their ability to recede visually and allow the front panel material to become the compositional focus. Into this frame, slim front panels are applied in the full range of AKB_08 materials: lacquered, veneered, Fenix NTM®, and Corian® — giving each composition its own distinct material personality while maintaining the collection’s unified structural language.
Materials Worthy of a Michelin Kitchen
Chef Berton’s involvement in the material specification of the AKB_08 ensured that every surface was evaluated not only aesthetically but operationally — for its ability to withstand the rigors of serious daily cooking while maintaining its beauty over years of intensive use.
Tissue Wood Veneers
One of the most distinctive material innovations in the AKB_08 program is the Tissue wood veneer series — an exclusive Arrital development in which special processing techniques create a raised three-dimensional texture impressed directly into the surface of the front panels. The result is a wood surface that is simultaneously visual and tactile: a composition of depth and pattern that transforms light across the cabinet face and creates environments of strong, exclusive personality. The Tissue veneers include the striking Tissue Elite — a finish that brings gallery-level presence to kitchen cabinetry without ever losing sight of its domestic purpose.
Fenix NTM® with Doha Metallic Finishes
The AKB_08 Fenix NTM® program includes the standard collection of ultra-matte solid colours — including the authoritative Nero Ingo (deep matte black) — and adds three exclusive Doha finishes that introduce a metallic surface effect of exceptional sophistication. The Doha series recalls the chromatic depth of brushed metals and industrial surfaces, giving the AKB_08 a material option that is simultaneously high-tech and warmly tactile — a natural complement to the professional appliance program that Berton specified.
Oxidised Lacquers
The AKB_08 oxidised lacquer finishes are produced through a special processing technique that creates a unique, non-repeating oxidised surface effect on each door panel — no two finished surfaces are identical. Like the patina on aged copper or the surface variation of hand-beaten steel, the oxidised lacquers give each kitchen a material depth that mass-produced finishes cannot replicate. They are the choice for clients who want their kitchen to carry the evidence of genuine craft.
Corian® and Stainless Steel Worktops
In the spirit of the professional kitchen, stainless steel worktops play a central role in the AKB_08 composition — the material of every serious kitchen brigade in the world, now brought into the domestic environment with the refinement that Arrital’s design language demands. Corian® surfaces provide a seamless, jointless alternative where a softer, more residential material language is preferred. The 30° Majestic oak counter, available in coordination with the Majestic sink, introduces a warm natural material element that grounds the most architectural compositions in organic reality.
The Professional Appliance Program: A Chef’s Equipment at Home
This is where the AKB_08 departs most radically from every other collection in modern kitchen design including the other Arrital collections. Chef Berton’s brief was unambiguous: the AKB_08 must be equipped with the same categories of appliances that define a professional kitchen, translated into formats and scales appropriate for domestic use.
The Salamander Grill
In professional kitchens worldwide, the salamander is an essential piece of equipment — an overhead radiant grill that allows a chef to gratinate, toast, glaze, and finish dishes with the precision that a conventional oven or standard broiler cannot deliver. The AKB_08 integrates a domestic salamander unit into the cabinet system — a first for home kitchen design, and a tool that transforms the quality of the finished dish for anyone who cooks with professional ambitions.
The Blast Chiller
The blast chiller — another instrument drawn directly from professional kitchen practice — rapidly lowers the temperature of a dish from cooking temperature to refrigerator or freezer temperature, preserving cell structure, texture, and flavour in a way that gradual cooling in a conventional refrigerator cannot. Its integration into the AKB_08 makes precise temperature management — the foundation of serious cooking technique — achievable in the home kitchen for the first time.
The Majestic Extraction Hood and Sink
The Majestic perimeter extraction hood — designed in satin-finish steel, with the geometric authority that characterizes the entire AKB_08 accessory program — is both a high-performance ventilation system and a design statement of unusual presence. Its perimeter configuration surrounds the cooking zone with extraction power at every point, eliminating the compromise between aesthetic and performance that conventional hood designs require.
The Majestic sink completes the washing station with a design concept that could only have emerged from a chef’s eye: its raised steel edges slope inward toward the basin, actively directing water and splashes back into the sink rather than onto the worktop. It is the kind of detail that professional kitchen designers have known for decades and domestic kitchen designers have consistently overlooked — until Berton pointed it out. The Majestic sink is paired with a fold-down tap that disappears flush with the counter when not in use, and a pop-up utensil panel adjacent to the sink that brings tools to hand during preparation and retracts cleanly when not needed.
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Focus On: The World’s First Patented Dynamic Kitchen Lighting System
If one innovation in the AKB_08 program most clearly expresses the depth of Berton’s contribution to the design process, it is Focus On — a patented dynamic LED lighting system that is unique in the world of kitchen design.
In a professional kitchen, the chef is always moving — between preparation zones, the cooking line, the pass, the plating station. Lighting in a professional kitchen designed to follow the work, not define fixed zones. Focus On brings this operational logic into the domestic kitchen: its LED light units move along a support guide mounted over the worktop, sliding to wherever the chef is working and locking into position to provide precise, directed task illumination. When a light unit is slid to the “off” position, it recharges — a minimal, elegant solution to the complexity of a genuinely unprecedented technology.
Focus On is not a lighting effect. It is a working tool — one that makes the difference between seeing what you are doing and not seeing it, in the precise way that matters to someone who takes the quality of their cooking seriously. It is the kind of innovation that could only have emerged from a chef’s collaboration: an architect would never have thought to ask for it, because an architect would never have known it was needed.
Three Design Awards That Speak for Themselves
The AKB_08 has received recognition at the highest levels of international and Italian design evaluation — a distinction shared by no other kitchen collection available through Tredi Interiors.
The Good Design Award 2016, awarded by the Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design and the European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies, recognized the AKB_08 for its design excellence at international level. The Regula Award 2017 — awarded within the prestigious publication 100 Progetti Italiani (100 Italian Projects) for the interior design category — recognized the AKB_08 as one of the most ambitious and original Italian design projects of its year. And the Compasso d’Oro ADI Honourable Mention 2018 — awarded at a ceremony at the Castello Sforzesco in Milan, and confirmed by inclusion in the permanent Compasso d’Oro ADI Collection — placed the AKB_08 in the company of the most celebrated objects in Italian design history. The Compasso d’Oro, now in its sixty-eighth year, is the oldest and most authoritative design award in the world. Membership of its Collection is a permanent recognition that does not expire.
For any client investing in Italian kitchen cabinets at this level, these awards represent an independent, expert confirmation of what the AKB_08 represents: a collection of genuine historical significance in the story of Italian design.
The AKB_08 in a California Home
California’s food culture is among the most sophisticated in the world. The Bay Area’s commitment to ingredients, technique, and the serious home kitchen — the culture that made farmer’s markets a national institution and farm-to-table a way of life — finds its perfect domestic expression in a kitchen that was co-designed by someone who has spent a professional lifetime in pursuit of culinary excellence.
In a Silicon Valley home where the owner approaches cooking with the same precision and ambition they bring to their professional work, the AKB_08’s blast chiller, salamander, Focus On lighting, and Majestic extraction system provide tools that elevate daily cooking to a genuinely different level. In a Coachella Valley desert estate, the collection’s Tissue Elite veneers and Doha metallic Fenix finishes create a kitchen of extraordinary material depth — surfaces that engage the eye differently at every hour as the desert light shifts through the day. In a coastal California home, the stainless steel worktops and satin Majestic hood create a kitchen that references the professional environment of California’s great restaurant culture, now brought home without compromise.
Experience AKB_08 at Tredi Interiors, California
At Tredi Interiors, we are proud to be California’s destination for the Arrital AKB_08 — a collection that represents a genuinely singular achievement in the history of European kitchen design. There is no other kitchen anywhere in the world that can claim what the AKB_08 claims: co-designed by a Michelin-starred chef, winner of the Compasso d’Oro, and available in a material and appliance program that performs at professional level while living at residential standard.
We invite you to visit our showrooms in Santa Clara — serving Silicon Valley, Los Altos, Cupertino, Mountain View, Saratoga, Los Gatos, and San Jose — and in Rancho Mirage, serving the Coachella Valley and the greater Palm Springs region. Experience the Floating Core door, the Focus On lighting system in motion, and the Majestic sink’s geometry in person. Understand, in three dimensions, what it means for a kitchen to have been conceived by a professional chef.
Begin with a complimentary 30-minute video consultation with one of our in-house designers — a focused conversation about your space, your cooking life, and how the AKB_08 can be composed specifically for your home. For projects outside California, Tredi Interiors executes commissions across the United States, including Hawaii, upon special request.
The AKB_08 is the collection for people who understand that a kitchen is not furniture. It is the room where life, creativity, and identity converge. And it should be designed accordingly.
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