Food Webs

"Dr. Samuel Johnson, from Warwick’s Mathematics Institute, explains: “Buildings require structural supports, such as the metal or timber frames around which they are then built. For the building to remain standing, though, these supports need to comply with the laws of mathematics and physics; if the roof is too heavy for the frame, the building collapses. The frames also need flexibility to adapt to conditions, if they are too rigid they become fragile and, for instance, unable to cope with difficult weather.

“The same is true of natural ecosystems; they need support and structure. Trophic Coherence seems to play a similar role in ecosystems as supporting frames of buildings — it is a structural property that helps ecosystems survive, and is common to all the ones we have analyzed. It provides them with essential support and structure.”"

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Visual Complexity

vertical greenery

"Architects and developers continue to inject greenery into high-rise buildings as the concept becomes far more common.

Beyond adding greenery to balconies, roof terraces or on the walls of skyscrapers, however, there is also a trend toward using building surfaces for urban agriculture as rapid urbanisation creates demand for affordable inner-city housing and accessible food. 

A 2014 United Nations report foresees an additional 2.5 billion people (66 per cent of the population) moving into urban areas by 2050. With this comes the opportunity to produce food in the heart of these urban areas through vertical farming"

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landmarks out of sugar

"They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Thanks to food artist Caitlin Levin and her photographer collaborator Henry Hargreaves, imitation in candy is now undisputedly the reigning champion of the most sincere forms of flattery. The duo teamed up to reproduce a number of famous museums using one of the world’s favorite vices: sweets."

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processed landscapes

"For their project "Processed Views," Barbara Ciurej and Lindsay Lochman used processed food to re-create famous landscape photographs that Carleton Watkins took of the American West. This "Fruit Loops Landscape" is based on Watkins' 1863 photo "Albion River.""

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Gingerbread Town

It's Holiday time again. The time of year to build with food! 

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The Kitchen that can do it all

Cameras in the oven, weight sensors in the fridge and monitor screens in the backsplash are just some of the high-tech gadgets integrated into the ultra-smart FutureHAUS kitchen.  

Designed by a team of Virginia Tech architecture students, in collaboration with the Modular Building Institute

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Food Trucks

"The Los Angeles local is part of an ever-evolving history of mobile food vendors, which began with the ‘chuckwagon’ created in 1866 by Charles Goodnight

Goodnight’s invention was used to feed herdsmen on long cross-country cattle drives and soon was followed by night lunch wagons serving construction workers in New York in the 1890s and mobile canteens in the late 1950s. The appearance of the slang term ‘roach coach’ served to define the cheap and grubby reputation of these mobile food vendors."

"But now with more than three million food trucks and five million food carts in the US, the competition between mobile vendors serving cut-price gastronomic experiences has reached fever pitch."

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Mobile Food Market

"...mobile food market ....brings fresh produce at good prices to the people most in need. Everybody pitched in; the Toronto Transit Commission donated a wheel-trans bus designed to carry people in wheelchairs, so it is accessible to everyone."
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Floating Gardens of Bangladesh

"...three years ago, Ms. Khatun was trained by Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha, a Bangladeshi nonprofit organization, to tend an unusual source of food and income: a floating farm with a duck coop, fish enclosures and vegetable garden moored by rope to the riverbank."

Floating farms — and produce that can flourish in flood conditions — are a way to help Bangladeshis live with rising waters.

“There is big demand for solutions for climate change-affected areas,” said Mohammed Rezwan, the founder and executive director of Shidhulai.

With the extra income from selling eggs, fish and vegetables, Ms. Khatun started saving money in a bank for the first time, bought a bed to keep her and her family off wet ground in their dirt-floored home, and helps her husband support the family.

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Urban Bee Hives

Although the drop in mortality is a positive, as is the fact that CCD does not seem to have afflicted Australia, two-thirds of beekeepers surveyed by the USDA still see any losses greater than the 18.9 per cent level as unacceptable and non economically sustainable. 

All of these statistics highlight a threat to bee colonies which will in turn affect global food security, agriculture jobs and pollination across the green environment. These statistics have prompted architects to create sustainable structures to house bees particuarly in urban areas. 

Many of these projects are designed to replicate the “hive” environment. Norwegian design firm Snøhetta’s Vulkan Beehive is made up of two birch veneer hexagonal volumes that aim to house bees while also educating city inhabitants on the current threat of CCD. 

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Taste + Space

Lidia Klein

"Among the senses engaged in experiencing architecture, taste remains the least active. Edible architectural structures seem only to exist in fiction, in stories such as The Gingerbread House, a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm and published in 1812. The protagonists, Hansel and Gretel, are a young brother and sister cast away from home. Wandering alone through the forest, the two children discover a house made of cake and confectionery. Tempted by the luscious structure, the hungry siblings start to bite into its sugar windowpanes and gingerbread roof, not yet knowing this architectural treat is a trap set by a witch. In Grimms’ story, architecture appears as an object of immediate, bodily experience. Doors, roof, walls and other structural elements function as sources of sensual pleasure, as they are “nibbled,” “tasted,” and “enjoyed with.”1 The tale of Hansel and Gretel is still one of the most powerful stories on the sensual perception of architecture, yet it remains different from our experience of buildings. First, the gingerbread house lacks the constraints of “real” architecture, which is expected to provide shelter and possess the quality of permanence. Second, its sensuous dimension remains in strong contrast with the dominant discourse of architecture."

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Italy and Food/Architecture Taste of the Past

While not all together relevent to the topic of food and architecture, this 30 minute video begins with the architect Pier Carlo Bontempi comparing the art of italian food culture with architecture and it's current lack of 'taste'. 

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Dubai in Food

On the centerpiece, engraved and written in English and Arabic with toasted almonds on a rice bed, it said: “Welcome to The Dubai Food Festival.”

This stunning installation of Dubai’s famous skyline and iconic buildings made entirely out of food....

But it also was a great temptation to want take a bite out of the Trade Center made of white and milk chocolate.

Paul Baker said the greatest challenge was that the entire food architecture of the edible Dubai skyline will not go bad, as it needs to stay in shape when it is being shipped to Dubai, and remain that way when it is on display during the Dubai Food Festival, which takes place from February 6-28, 2015.

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Food Safety Spoon

Designer Ernesto D Morales has proposed a spoon made out of magnifying glass as component of a series of absurd goods for his fictional firm Object Solutions (+ film).

The spoon, designed by Ernesto D Morales, is meant to allow the user to examine every single spot of a meal prior to consumption to guarantee the absence of glass, hair, bugs or other contaminants, and then consume the foods employing the exact same apply.

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Cape Town's Urban Agriculture Boom

In the last few years, Cape Town has witnessed the proliferation of hundreds of community gardens and urban farms. Abalimi is one organization that has worked to link the city's new micro-farmers with the types of middle-earners eager to fill their cupboards with local, organic produce.

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Genetic toolkits

Here, we get specialized on the topic of "architecture and food". Genetic Modification, or GMO crops are designed food. I am intrigued how they use "modified architectures" to describe the manipulation of plants. Plants have a structure, and technology has allowed us to see and understand that structure...and thus, we have been able to re-build our food - deconstruct and then reconstruct our dinner. 

"Ancient humans and early plant breeders recognized that selecting plants with modified architectures could have a major impact on the amount of fruit they produce. In general scientific terms, Lippman explains, "Plant architecture results from a delicate balance between vegetative growth – shoots and leaves – and flower production. To increase crop yields, we want plants to produce as many flowers and fruits as possible, but this requires energy – energy that is produced in leaves."

"Traditionally, plant breeders have relied on natural variation in plant genes to increase yield, but yield gains are plateauing," Lippman notes. "There is an immediate need to find new ways for plant breeders to produce more food." Worldwide more than 842 million people do not receive adequate nourishment, about 1 person in 8 alive today. The cost of food is expected to increase and hunger is likely to become more widespread as the global population expands to beyond 9 billion by 2050."

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Read more: Getting more out of nature: Genetic toolkit finds new maximum for crop yields http://www.nanowerk.com/news2/biotech/newsid=37951.php#ixzz3I79kyici 
Follow us: @nanowerk on Twitter

Food Hacks

I was familiar with "design hacks" more in terms of IKEA products than architecture or food. But, this act of 'hacking' - or taking something with an intended purpose or function and using it in an uncoventional way to recieve an intended, personal outcome - has been thrown around more and more. It's incredibly creative and can have an impact of personalization, customization, and optimization by getting more or better out of something that you already have. 

Design does this. We could learn a lot about architecture and design from hacks. Where are architecture hacks in our everyday world?

Here are some pretty cleaver food hacks.

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Growing on a Bridge

The Cloud Collective has installed an algae cultivation system on a highway overpass in Geneva, Switzerland, as a demonstration of the role urban settings can play in the production of food and plants.

Designed as part of the garden festival Genève: Villes et Champs, the ‘Culture Urbaine’ installation is made up of a closed system of transparent tubes connected to the exterior of the bridge.

Algae are cultivated inside the tubes, grown using only sunlight and C02.

The algae can be used to filter air, as combustible biomass or even as raw material for different cosmetic and alimentary products.

A steel structure running vertical to the bridge holds the system’s pumps, filters and solar panels and provides a written description of the project for pedestrians and cyclists.

The Cloud Collective hopes that the installation prompts future practices of reinterpreting existing infrastructures for the production of food and biomass.

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Misfits

Blog: MISFITS' ARCHITECTURE
"The built environment is always going to have its bread buildings and its cake buildings, its caviar and its junk. Somewhere in the middle, there has to be a “nutritious” architecture that makes us feel good because it is good for us – an architecture that does The Shelter Thing well and that doesn’t cost the earth. This is what we care about."

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Policy Database

The Growing Food Connections Policy Database is a searchable collection of local public policies that explicitly support community food systems. This database provides policymakers, government staff, and others interested in food policy with concrete examples of local public policies that have been adopted to address a range of food systems issues: rural and urban food production, farmland protection, transfer of development rights, food aggregation and distribution infrastructure, local food purchasing and procurement, healthy food access, food policy councils, food policy coordination, food system metrics, tax reductions and exemptions for food infrastructure, and much more.

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Herald Design Forum

The Herald Design Forum 2014, a celebration of creativity and innovation in design, will explore the changes that design will bring to life in its fourth edition in November.

Under the title “Design Spectrum, Expanding the Definition of Design,” the forum, organized by Herald Corp., will discuss the influences of design in various fields, including architecture, product design, fashion and food. 

The forum will kick off with talks by celebrated architects Rem Koolhaas and Joon Paik. Koolhaas, professor at Harvard University and curator of the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale, is one of the most influential figures in contemporary architecture. His recent works include the CCTV headquarters in Beijing and the Shenzhen Stock Exchange’s new building. He also designed a gallery space in the Samsung Museum of Art and the Museum of Art, Seoul National University. 

Peter Callahan, caterer and food stylist, will talk about incorporating design elements to food presentation based on his catering experience to the U.S. President Barack Obama, Martha Stewart, Vera Wang and Tory Burch. 

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Furniture that is Alive!

GreenTowers specializes in urban agricultural design.  We create self-contained ecosystems that allow you to grow food at home, at work, and everywhere in between.  Our focus is on unconventional and soilless growing techniques, ranging from ornamental aquaponic indoor gardens to hydroponic vertical farming production.  Relax and revitalize by surrounding yourself with a healthier and more natural environment.

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the markthal in rotterdam

led by developer provast and designed by architecture office MVRDV, the structure combines two dissimilar program types, composed as a housing building which arches over an indoor market hall. the facility offers public access for eating, drinking, and shopping, while also accommodating 228 apartments featuring externally facing balconies.

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Food Storage

Organize Kitchen Pantry: ever since the Dust Bowl it seems generations of Americans are keen on hoarding food. The design for such a stockpile comes in a myriad of looks...and the technology to make it more efficient just keep coming.

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Floating Gardens

In a pilot project for the shores of Singapore, Barcelona-based firm JAPA has designed a network of looping towers floating on the shoreline to house crops for the increasingly land-poor nation.

"What we propose is not just a single tower but it's like a network of towers that will produce agriculture via hydroponics," said Javier Ponce, head architect and founder of Forward Thinking Architecture, the ideas lab for JAPA.

"All the crops will be produced inside the vertical structures that will be placed or located next to the cities and more dense areas.

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Building Bananas

"the facility is meant to house a collective business center and hub where different produce companies can hold meetings and conduct seminars. referring to these activities, the complex appears as a combination of three tubular volumes that have been extruded and tapered on each end to mimic a bundle of bananas. the complexity of the section and spatial experience is enhanced by offsetting the pieces and along the x-, y-, and z-planes of the site extents. this is structurally capable through the addition of two trusses that bisect the lower levels and support the elevated platform."

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Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs

We are the UK government department responsible for policy and regulations on environmental, food and rural issues. Our priorities are to grow the rural economy, improve the environment and safeguard animal and plant health.
We are responsible for policy and regulations on:

the natural environment, biodiversity, plants and animals
sustainable development and the green economy
food, farming and fisheries
animal health and welfare
environmental protection and pollution control
rural communities and issues
Although Defra only works directly in England, it works closely with the devolved administrations in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and generally leads on negotiations in the EU and internationally.

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internal processes

Axonometric production collage

Aditional drawing to the Food and Architecture project, describing the internal processes of the machines in relation to the whole structure.

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Food Space Designers

“We are observers,” Rudolph says. “We’re constantly gathering inspiration from everywhere into our memory banks. We really like mashing up ideas in ways that are relevant to the project at hand and might feel familiar yet somehow a bit odd or unexpected. . . . Our designs are not about preciousness or minimalism. Our goal is to create social spaces that bring people together to share food.”
To date, the two architects and their small support staff have designed around a half dozen restaurants and food-related venues, including a second for Hibler, Superba Food & Bread. They transformed a 115-year-old auto body shop into a 4,377-square-foot all-day eatery, serving up pretzel croissants in the morning and butcher’s steak with bone marrow bordelaise at night. Industrial wood trusses combine with Japanese cabinetry and wall-sized supergraphics. Huge garage doors roll up during business hours so the airy dining room stretches effortlessly onto the patio. Southern California design has a long tradition of ignoring the distinctions between indoors and out.
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Value Farm

"Value Farm creates value by cultivating the land as a collective effort. The project intersects issues of urban transformation, architecture and urban agriculture with an international cultural event, and explores the possibilities of urban farming in the city and how that can integrate with community-building. It forms part of the Shenzhen Hong Kong Bi-city Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture 2013, within Ole Bouman’s Value Factory located at the Shekou Former Guangdong Glass Factory in Shenzhen, a site that is itself undergoing radical transformation. Responding to the Biennale’s theme of ‘Urban Border’ and Shekou’s post-industrial regeneration, Value Farm is realized as new architectural and landscape design providing permanent infrastructure for the site’s future as well as a substantial piece of performative, growing event-architecture throughout the biennale."

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Ice Cream and Architecture

"Case’s creations seek to bridge the gap between architecture and public awareness. After years of schooling, where she found the subject lacking a human face, she set out to show that architecture can be fun and interesting. Her method: Using food to explore structure and teach customers about the field. Popular flavors include Im Pei-nut Butter, Mies Vanillie Rohe and Mintimalism. The name “Coolhaus” itself is a pun: The triple entendre references the Bauhaus design movement, Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas and the anatomy of the ice cream sandwich itself—a “cool house”—according to the company’s website."

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Street Food Institute

MISSION

The Street Food Institute works with underserved young adults in communities to help emerging culinarians realize their entrepreneurial dreams through business education and technical support, culminating in hands-on training at Street Food Hubs serving the public. These efforts aim to provide increased choices of nourishing and affordable food and a context for community economic revitalization.

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Tree Farm like Building

"Our version of the vertical farm was intended to become an independent, open-to-air structure which would be purely focusing on farming activities and sustainable functions such as generating renewable energy and performing air, and water filtration," say architects Steve Lee and See Yoon Park.

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Food & Architecture

Nothing like great architecture and food to make an event...a fund-raiser..

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Gastro-Architecture

The New York Times feature “Gastro-Architecture” is a series of illustrations of food and food implement-shaped buildings from around the world created by illustrator Nicholas Blechman. 

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International Gastronomic Center

"The objective of the current International Gastronomic Center competition for architecture students is the creation of a space for cultural exchange through gastronomy.

In this spirit, the International Gastronomic Center (IGC) will be a space for chefs from all around the world to exchange knowledge and share their experience in order to promote gastronomic research and for their own personal and professional enrichment."

Winners announced

"In a society that continually directs us towards the search for immediate satisfaction of our needs, we propose a space debtor SLOW philosophy. This movement proposes sensitize with the environment: in this case, food and all that it implies. We are getting used to the clock direct our lives, leaving us little time to stop and think and enjoy the action. The food should be a stimulus for sight, taste, smell, hearing and touch, has become a simple need to cover, a fact demonstrated by the abundant proliferation of restaurants 'fast food'. We propose a sum of spaces revive the senses through training and exchange activities ranging from receiving a cooking master class to learn how to grow in a garden."

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