to move up and down
eating architecture
a collection of culinary texts, images and videos that leads to an architectural final thesis project
front view
Synestiasis : culinary gatherings in the center of Athens
The center of Athens is chosen as the area of our intervention and our main goal is the design of an open to all public space, a meeting point with food serving as a motive. Consuming food in public brings about liveliness to urban life. Food and its public consumption is used as a medium of urban regeneration as well as a way of triggering the citizens in order to start appropriating public space and taking part in social events . This inevitably leads into forming a collective consciousness.
The food in the city is a dense network of activities with numerous social and economic impacts that include complex systems. A wide range of connections and interactions proves at many levels that food may work as an educational, economic, social and nutritional mechanism that affects, either by improving or by hindering, the health of each individual, community, city, or a wide range area as a whole.
In this way food starts to be recognized as a matter of design and not simply as an agricultural one.
Basic criteria for designing in our proposal is not food simply as a final product, but also as a process. From growing, to processing and finally to consuming. This process is really important, as with the constant growth of the cities and the distance of people from the countryside and county life in general , the city de facto cannot be autonomous. Rather it depends on rural areas and its inhabitants in their majority are not aware of this cycle of food.
Our intervention deals with the unification of the uncovered spaces of the block of our plot, as well the design of a public building that hosts uses that revolve around food and eating. The main building volume consists of 3 parts. The first one is the greenhouse, which represents the production (growing). The second is the kitchen, where the process takes place (cooking) and the third part which is the eating space (consuming), takes place in big communal tables.
The main space is mostly used as a restaurant, but certain days of the week a community kitchen takes place. This kind of use derives from the fact that the last years the citizens of Athens gradually grow a communal consciousness . Many people start to self-organize in smaller groups and take initiatives in the frame of a community. Inside this framework even more community kitchens start to appear. These community kitchens are located all over Athens, mainly in the center, forming a network which connects people through solidarity and the common need for food.
With our proposal we wish to add one more node in this network, underlining and re –enforcing this turn in our society.
At the same time, in this framework of collectivity we include the use of a lending library as well as cooking and gardening lessons.
The completed building is a steel, assembled construction with the possibility of dismantling it. The structure thus is transformable, so as not to create a static condition, but presents a flexibility in possible future changes.
Besides the uses mentioned above , through this design we aim to promote individual expression in public space, as well as to establish social relationships and new forms of life and domestic life inside the city. This is further enhanced by the design of public space in order to accommodate activities such as a food market, screenings and gatherings.
The perception of public space as something transformable and not as static creates the need for transformations that should accommodate not only different uses but also different users. In this case, the opening of the urban block and the design of a building of public use promotes the idea of designing different situations in the street level that promote the gathering of groups and uses. More specifically, except from the indoor uses of the café and the grocery store, in the free part of the ground floor three different scenarios of ephemeral uses may occur, that alter the space respectively.
The largest formation is done by the operation of a food market, which may take place once a week in the open-air , but also in the sheltered by the building area. At the same time, in a more limited area of the ground floor, between the central staircase and the café, screenings and gatherings for discussions may take place. This area may be easily isolated from the other activities of the building with light partitions that allow the definitions of new properties of space with simultaneous internal and external qualities.
“The Green Canteen project is about building an ecological and self-sufficient food center within SOS Children’s Village on Zanzibar, Tanzania.”
Aerial view of our project in Athens
Domus
Studio Appétit, with Studio Lenneke Wispelwey, Luscious Food Cravings. Photo Masha Bakker photography
Kitchen actions diagrams
#1 Study of kitchen use. Tom Fotheringam, Olly Cooper
#2 Increasing disorder in a dining table. Sarah Wigglesworth and Jeremy Till
Inspired by the Futurist movement and its manifesto of cookery titled La Cucina Futurista, Marije Vogelzang has designed Pasta Sauna, both a food performance and a smart installation. People can enter the space and flavour&taste a bowl of freshly cooked pasta, while the boiling water steams creating sauna effects.
Images by Henk van Dijke _ All rights reserved.
DIPLOMA DAY from mpoufos on Vimeo.
a video of our presentation created and edited by a good and creative friend
food market in ground level enhances communal eating and culinary gatherings
sneak preview before presentation
On the 28th of April we visited the first migrant kitchen in Athens that took place in Vryssaki, a small cultural center and café in Plaka.
The idea of the Migrant Kitchen is an initiative of the Culinary Backstreets Istanbul. In Athens the first one of a series of such was organized by Culinary backstreets Athens, Vryssaki, and the N.G.Os “Give Hope” and “Omada Asty”. Two cooks from Ghana prepared for us a small example of their local cuisine.
The main dish was nkrakra soup with fufu, a classic Ghanaian dish. Nkrakra was made by chopped pieces of beef with a spicy sauce. Fufu is a dish made by mashing and boiling cassava, forming a smooth puree. The main dish was also followed by a side dish made from chopped and boiled okra.
The beef was quite spicy, but the taste of it was not something foreign to us. On the other hand, the other dishes helped to quench the thirst from all the spice and their taste, especially fufu’s taste, was something different. It was an overall pleasant experience, and we will definitely pay a visit to the next Migrant Kitchen!
Culinary Backstreets http://www.culinarybackstreets.com/
Vryssaki http://www.vryssaki.gr/main.php?cat_id=268
N.G.O. “Give Hope” https://www.facebook.com/pages/Give-Hope-Greece/182892545151956 (Greek)
N.G.O “Omada Asty” https://www.facebook.com/OmadaAsty (Greek)
the devil is in the detail
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGbYyV0UMgM
(Source: jessicasignellknutsson, via architecturemas)
“Organization Earth is a newly-established Greek not-for-profit NGO set up to provide answers to modern social concerns about society and the environment.
The aim is to disseminate Environmental Social Intelligence (ESI), in other words to inform, educate and raise awareness in society about modern problems facing the environment and the ways that people can contribute to safeguarding the environment through their day-to-day activities and practices… ”
http://www.organizationearth.org/?page_id=2663
Every Sunday a collective kitchen takes place in the center. Anyone may participate or eat for a small amount of money.
We paid a visit last Sunday the 14th of April, to the center to get a firsthand experience. When we arrived the food was ready and the place was full of people eating and having fun. Next to the cooking area there was a counter selling biological vegetables. We waited patiently at the line for our turn to get our own share. The food served contained risotto, spinach with octopus, black eyed peas and fresh salad. Of course along with the food came a big slice of bread. The food was quite tasty and the atmosphere really friendly. It was a pleasant Sunday lunch.