Abstract:
The production and consumption of a meal can be seen as a form of quotidian theatre, which hospitality architecture can enhance and celebrate: responding to this daily activity with the provision of multiple stages, for the various performances, where its participants can experience the culinary arts as more than just a simple plate of food. The Farm-to-Table restaurant may have started out as an organic mode in which to approach and celebrate food, but in today’s society it has become a trend, as something to be kept up rather than to be thoughtfully developed and cared for. The current utilization of the Farm-to-table label holds us in a false sense of security about the relationship that exists between grower, creator and consumer. This thesis sets out to define a new, perhaps truer, meaning of a Farm-to-Table concept restaurant and analyse the associated experience as one of theatrical performance. Through a considered understanding of the restaurant as an architectural setting, I will design a restaurant experience that explains a more authentic, sensory and innovative version of the Farm-to-Table restaurant, utilizing theatrical concepts of performance to better understand the experience and the process of the meal itself. When the land is acknowledged as fertile, productive and local territory the connection between stage and setting is made and the whole project can begin to be accessed as an ecology. The project only fosters itself as an ecology when housed by an architecturally engineered environment that focuses in on the honesty of the farms ingredients and the magic that occurs when a chef transforms them and uses the space to maestro a performance. The final architectural gesture will initiate a strong connection between the field, the participants and the final stage, the table with a constant consideration to how the consumer will interact with the land that is providing for the meal.
