Wikipedia
A conversation pit is an architectural feature that incorporates built-in seating into a depressed section of flooring within a larger room. This area often has a table in the center as well. The seats typically face each other in a centrally focused fashion, bringing the occupants closer together than free-standing tables and chairs normally would. In residential design this proximity facilitates comfortable human conversation, dinner parties, and table top games. Their disadvantages include accidental falls and uncomfortable interactions with those standing above in the main room.
Usage examples of "conversation pit".
Stack sat in the pneumatic chair that dominated the conversation pit where top-level decisions were made.
Free-form seats and couchesapparently made of natural woodfurnished a sunken conversation pit near a broad, one-piece window that stretched at least twenty meters to the ceiling.
Draped in silk or cotton, clad in business suits and lush gowns, they stood elbow to elbow on the hardwood floor, lounged hip to hip on the sapphire cushions of the enormous circular conversation pit, sat knee to knee on the steps of a bronze circular staircase that led to an open loft where still more people leaned against a railing decked with naked cherubs.
He reached his customary bar exactly when he always did, sitting in the smokefilled conversation pit, watching cartoons on the giant television screen, sipping a Coke.
Ahead was a huge living room with a sunken conversation pit, a wet bar, and a solid wall of floor-to-ceiling glass that opened on a roof garden, a magnificent view of Central Park and the city and stars beyond.
He led me into a tall box and down into an oval conversation pit entirely carpeted in gray shag.
You get to Strangefellows, the oldest drinking hole, conversation pit and scumbag attractor in the history of Mankind, by walking down the kind of streets that raise the hairs on the back of your neck, and then slipping into a side alley that isn't always there.
There was a sitting area with low, flowing, leather couches in a conversation pit.
A step-down conversation pit increased the size of the glass wall, magnified the view.
Farther down the hall, he glanced through an archway, into a sunken conversation pit lavishly carpeted with ancient, indestructible synthetic plush.