Why Smart Companies Leave Room for a “Useless” Tea Space

Design Perspective by SI JING SPACE DESIGN

Have you ever experienced this?

A meeting room is full, the agenda is packed, and every conversation goes straight to the point. Yet after several rounds of discussion, the collaboration still falls short of the final step.

Teams align on goals repeatedly and operate with maximum efficiency, but somehow there always seems to be an invisible layer between people. The more they talk, the more tense things become.

Many companies spend enormous effort optimizing communication strategies and upgrading meeting systems, while overlooking one simple fact:

Many problems are not problems of communication—they are problems of space.

This is precisely why, in almost every office we design at SI JING, we leave room for a tea space.

What we seek to create is never merely a place for drinking tea, but a place where people are willing to sit down and truly talk.

01 The Semi-Open Principle

Not a Space of Power, but a Shared Living Room

When people think of an office tea room, they often imagine a closed-off space reserved exclusively for executives.

Yet if a space is too enclosed, it becomes a symbol of hierarchy—employees hesitate to enter, and clients feel a sense of distance.

If it is too open, however, it loses the quiet atmosphere needed for conversation and becomes little more than a passageway.

In our Nanjing Center project, we intentionally avoided designing the tea space as a fully enclosed room.

Glass was used as a boundary, while borrowed views created transitions between spaces. The semi-open scale strikes a delicate balance: it preserves the quietness required for solitude and conversation, while avoiding the feeling of separation.

It belongs to no single person.

Instead, it serves as the office's shared living room—a space visible to everyone and welcoming to all.

A tea room is not meant to hide conversations; it is meant to make them visible.

A good tea space is never a restricted territory with an unspoken "Do Not Enter" sign.

Rather, it is an invitation.

It invites passersby to pause.

It invites those with something to discuss to sit down.

Good Conversations Need a Little Waiting

We did not hide the tea stove.

Instead, we made the act of brewing tea a visible part of the space.

Because human connection does not always begin with words.

Sometimes, it begins in the few minutes spent waiting for water to boil.

Sometimes, it begins in a silence that does not rush toward the topic.

Sometimes, it begins with the slow unfurling of tea leaves in a cup.

Relationships are much the same.

They cannot be rushed.

They can only be built slowly, over time.

02 The Daylight Principle

Reserving the Best Light for Human Connection

In many offices, the best daylight belongs to executive rooms, and the best views belong to management.

But in our Minfeng project in Wuxi, we reserved the window-side location for the tea space.

The reason is simple:

Human connection deserves the best light.

Natural light softens emotions.

Views beyond the window ease the tension of conversation.

When people no longer need to keep their eyes fixed on one another, and can occasionally look into the distance, conversations naturally become more relaxed.

Sometimes, what leaves a lasting impression on clients is not the view itself, but the feeling created within that space.

More often than not, what helps people relax is not tea itself—

but light.

There are conversations that never happen in meeting rooms, yet quietly emerge over a cup of tea by the window.

Tea Space as an Expression of Relationships

People often ask:

Why place the tea room in the best location within the office?

Because in SI JING's view, a tea space has never been merely a functional area.

It is an expression of relationships.

On the walls of tea spaces across our projects, we often inscribe these words:

Meet the people you most wish to see.
Drink the finest tea.
Discuss the most meaningful ideas.
Live the life most worth living.

We love these words because they capture, almost entirely, the purpose of a tea space.

It does not exist for tea itself.

It exists to create a place where people are willing to meet, willing to stay, and willing to connect.