Anna Lee
Bachelor of Design
Edibles and Edifice
The links between architecture and cuisine reveal many interesting things about culture and human history. Rarely to people consider these fields in an integrated manner, we are much more responsive to the practices of eating, and the architecture becomes just something that facilitates it. While the provisions of food and shelter are necessities for survival, the moment a mere shelter is considered into architecture, or a chef turns an egg into a soufflé, it becomes so much more than a means of sustenance – it is how societies have sought towards higher satisfactions of the senses and of the intellect, and as a means to promote and participate in certain values, ideals and philosophies. In such a way, these fields are somewhat conservative practices – conservative in the sense that it materializes and preserves the history of culture. What can we observe to be the prominent gastronomic habits and lifestyle values that marks todays context? Is it possible to translate them in architecture? How would that take on a physical form? Like chefs consider their ingredients, recipes and techniques to treat them, I looked at these eating experiences, notions of authenticity and material qualities presented by bamboo and constructed a series of patterns to form a design language that speaks of the values of today. My project is a sort of curated bamboo experience; this space is tasted and digested over time, appreciated through your senses and intellect as you develop a relationship with the unique environment at your own pace.