The Architecture of Food

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the

Architecture of

Food by byDanielle DanielleVevea Vevea

the

Architecture of

Food

by Danielle Vevea

A c k n o w l e d g ements: This book was created in completion of a requirement for the Media and Communications class in the Master of Arts in Interior Design Program at Harrington College of Design in spring of 2011. Thank you to Erin Costello for the use of her exquisite camera. Thank you to Brad Kisner for imparting his knowledge of layout and printing. Thank you to Sheleene Bell for her support and feedback. Thank you to my mother who inspired me to cook for myself. And thank you to Tommy for being my partner in the kitchen and in life.

Beau ty w ill e i t h e r b e e dibl e o r n ot a t a ll . ..

Salvador Dali

Introduction: My favorite pastime is tasting. Cooking and eating have been a wondrous form of discovery for me. I love tasting new foods, different foods, and exotic foods. I distinguish events and places I’ve been with what I ate.

I love to think about how dishes are developed, deconstructing and recreating them. I love cooking food and sharing with people. I love seeing the reactions they have, comparing my tastes with the tastes of others.

Eating is definitely a social event for me.

I view design in much the same way I view food. Eating is a dimensional experience developed through texture, color, temperature, flavor, and aroma, and to me, these elements are also key to a well-built interior environment, specifically restaurant interiors. I am excited and inspired by structure, color, and materiality. I want to make a connection between the food we eat and the places in which we eat.

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Rationale: As a design student and a lover of all things tasty, I am working to research the intersection between these two worlds. The following pages contain an in depth, photographic and architectural exploration of fresh food. While, color and texture play a huge role in the visual appeal of these foods, the primary focus in this book is the structure. Most of these ingredients grow naturally with a complex internal structure that is best revealed when cut open. In order to examine the structure more closely, I simply photographed the exterior of each fruit or vegetable, sliced the produce in two, photographed the interior, and created an architectural drawing of the structure and space of the plant. Also noted is the symmetrical balance that grows naturally within each fruit or vegetable. This exploration will hopefully inform aspects of my thesis which will further connect the culinary realm with interior design.

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Ta bl e full of Ingredients:

Fruit A pples Red Delicious Pink Lady Golden Delicious Granny Smith

Citrus Orange Blood Orange Ugli Fruit Grape Fruit Lemon Lime

Exotic Kiwi Papaya Star Fruit Kiwana Melon Asia Bitter Melon Coconut Banana Pear

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Vegetable Peppers Ancho Cayenne Fresno Habanero Jalapeno Green Bell Orange Bell Yellow Bell

BUlbs Red Onion Yellow Onion Scallion Shallot Garlic Tomato Green Heirloom Orange Heirloom Red

Misc.

Avacado Eggplant Okra Lettuce Red Cabbage Artichoke

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Sy m m et r y Symmetry occurs naturally in most fruits and vegetables. Symmetry also plays an important role in the compositional aesthetic of design. The two most prolific symmetrical types are bilateral and radial. Bilateral symmetry is signified by two sides mirrored over a central axis. Radial symmetry is the rotational repetition around a central point.

Most fruits and vegetables have both bilateral and radial symmetry.

In the following pages either bilateral or radial symmetry will be featured in combination with photographs and architectural sketchs and of the fresh foods that nourish us on a daily basis.

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Bilatteral Symmetry

Radial Symmetry

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“ I f s o metimes we find our best ideas w h e n washing dishes or chopping onions t h e n t he trajectory of a habitual reach fo r t h at slightly burned slotted spoon, t h e ra pid-fire choreography of stops and s t a r t s involved in the final preparations of a h o liday meal, or the plastic modeling of d o u gh into a basked crust also in s p ire s design.�

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APPLES

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PINK LADY

RED DELICIOUS

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GRANNY SMITH

GOLDEN DELICIOUS

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CITRUS

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“Taste is a faculty which presents ‘sensibility, but not reason’ or ‘quick intellectual discernment plus delicacy of feelings’.”

UGLI FRUIT

BLOOD ORANGE

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GRAPEFRUIT

N A VA L O R A N G E

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CITRUS

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LEMON

EXOTIC 28

FRUITS “The cleansing, cutting and cooking of food form a routine that also doubles as a site for aesthetic experimentation.�

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KIWI

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P A P A YA

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S TA R F RU I T

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K I WA N A

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ASAIN BITTER

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COCONUT

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BANANA

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PEAR

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PEPPERS

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“Like the table itself, food stages events, congregating and segregating people, and food becomes an architecture that inhabits the body�

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HABANERO

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ANCHO

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JALAPENO

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C A YA N N E

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FRESNO

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GREEN BELL

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ORANGE BELL

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YELLOW BELL

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BULBS

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“Taste is thus a reasoning which suggests what something may be: it is a knowledge which does not know, as opposed to a knowledge which knows.�

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YELLOW ONION

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RED ONION

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SHALLOT

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SCALLION

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GARLIC

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TOMATOES

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“The smelling, the tasting, the sighting, and ultimately the ingestion of food offer a rare opportunity to literally consume a work of art.�

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HEIRLOOM

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R E D T O M AT O

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“ An understanding of the form and space of cookery provides a site to rethink and reorder the material and metaphysical, empty and full, high and low, or dirty and clean into mutually inclusive investigative categories.�

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MISCELLANEOUS

VEGETABLES

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AV O C A D O

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OKRA

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EGGPLANT

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LETTUCE

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RED CABBAGE

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“No one can escape the conditions of creaturality, of eating and drinking and domestic life...�

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ARTICHOKE

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Co n cl u s i o n : Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity.

Voltaire This exploration of interior and exterior spaces of fruits and vegetables yields graphic information about the structural aspects of these foods.

Symmetry is evident in all of the produce and in most cases, both radial and bilateral symmetry are present. Central seed location and the existence of both exterior skins and interior flesh are common features in all of the fruits and vegetables. However, the organization of seeds, the skin thickness, and the variation in the flesh composition vary greatly from produce to produce.

Collectively, this is the architecture of food at its very basis.

Future application of this information could manifest itself in many ways. The symmetry principles could be applied to space plan layouts of culinary establishments, or the compositional organization of a produce interior could inform the place settings at a dining table. I hope to utilize the information in this case study as a reference, a cookbook per say, as I continue to develop my thesis.

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N ote s : Quotations were collected from Eating Architecture, a collection of essays edited by Jamie Horwitz and Paulette Singley.

Hamin, Mark. “Science Designed and Digested: Between Victorian and Modernist Food Regimes.” In Architecture, edited by Jamie Horwitz and Paulette Singley, 153. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2004.

Horwitz, Jamie, and Paulette Singley. Introduction to Eating Architecture.

6, 10, 11, 14, 16. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2004.

Frascari, Marco. “Semiotica Ab Edendo, Taste in Architecture.” In Architecture, edited by Jamie Horwitz and Paulette Singley, 195, 199.

Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2004.

Letherbarrow, David. “Table Talk.” In Architecture, edited by Jamie Horwitz and Paulette Singley, 212. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2004.

Letinsky, Laura. “Morning, and Melancholia.” In Architecture, edited by Jamie Horwitz and Paulette Singley, 207. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2004.

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Abou t t h e A u t h o r : Danielle Vevea is an aspiring Interior Designer. Originally from Marshfield, Wisconsin, she is received her Bachelor of Science in Art and Psychology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She is currently persuing a Master of Arts in Interior Design at Harrington College of Design in Chicago, Illinois.

The disection of fruits and vegetables lead to this graphic depiction of the intersection between food and arcitechture.

Utilizing basic components such as symmetry, architectural sketches, and photographed slices of produce, The Architecture of Food highlights the complex structures of these everyday edible items.

April 2011Š