In 2018, Stephan Hürlemann was comissioned by Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) to design a fair stand concept aimed at recruiting new employees. Under the slogan «Move Switzerland with us» a «Career Café» was to be developed and set up in a pop-up manner at railway stations, universities and exhibition centres with the idea of introducing jobseekers to the 150 professions at SBB in manifold ways.

Stephan Hürlemann aspired to design a flexible and ready-to-use construction kit. The result consists in seven elements, which can be adapted to the respective context by SBB employees and combined in any number of pieces.

Three typologies of two-metre high cuboids define the space: a light, a back office and an all-purpose module. All bodies can be put to use 360°, offering information surfaces on the outside and storage space on the inside. The centrepiece of the Career Café is a bar cart, complemented by Hürlemann with bistro tables, chairs and an illuminated logo. Since the big elements have castors, the design of the pop-up stand remains flexible throughout the day.

With the scalable Career Café, Hürlemann and his team realised a design fit for the future – avant-garde thought, with a great formal universality and made of materials that age well even with signs of wear.

«I wanted to develop a radical concept which, much like SBB in everyday life, plays with standardisations and rules and expresses familiarity» says the architect and designer.