fake food

"Developed especially for children and families, Guixé’s large-scale, custom-designed space will combine the artist’s own graphics with design challenges and hands-on activities for young people that encourage a rethinking of the familiar foods that we eat each day and sprout new ideas for food concepts and flavours."

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dumpster house

How to get students thinking about their environmental footprints?

Jeff G. Wilson and his students at Huston-Tillotson University in Austin, Tex., retrofitted a garbage container into a cozy pad that he lived in for an entire year. It was, he says, “a radical experiment in what it would mean to live on, and in, less” — specifically, 33 square feet. He moved out last February but the experiment continues.

Nine educators have since taken up residency for up to a week to see what it’s like to live without running water. Cooking is on a camping stove. But there is electricity. To battle interior heat that rises to over 130 degrees in Texas’s sweltering summers, the bin had to be connecting to the grid so air-conditioning could be installed. There’s now a TV and an overhead light. But it’s still tight quarters.

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Dorm room restaurant

A Columbia University student who is hoping to earn A's in the classroom may also have to worry about securing top marks from the NYC Health Department due to the restaurant in his dorm room.
Jonah Reider, 21, opened a New American restaurant called Pith in his dorm room and he serves his customers five- to eight-course meals that he prepares in the kitchen in his suite at Hogan Hall.
Diners, who typically fork over about $15, have to book at the college senior's trendy establishment with Yelp and Reider has reservations that will keep the restaurant packed through Christmas.

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Food Axis

Blending architectural and social history with the necessity―and the passion―for food, this engaging new book attempts to understand the development of the American house by viewing it through one very specific lens: the food axis. Taking in far more than the kitchen, author Elizabeth Collins Cromley explores all areas of food management within the home―preparation, cooking, consumption, and disposal. Her food axis implies a network of related spaces above and below ground, both attached to the house and separate from it. 

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alcoholic architecture

An installation called “Alcoholic Architecture,” coming soon to London’s Borough Market, dispenses booze in the form of a “walk-in cloud of breathable cocktail.” It’s the creation of Bompas & Parr, a whimsical food art studio known for its bespoke jellies and fruit-flavored fireworks.

The so-called “alcoholic weather system” is a thick mist, one part spirits to three parts mixer. Guests enter the chamber wearing protective ponchos and take in alcohol through their lungs and eyeballs. Inside, the humidity is so high that you can’t see farther than one meter around. According to a press release, Bompas & Parr worked with respiratory scientists to arrive at the optimal dwell time—50 minutes, or the equivalent of about one liquid drink.

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Ecotrust's The Redd to bring small food-makers together with social justice bent

Ecotrust has a long history working with Oregonians in rural areas who are producing food and resources, but have always struggled to connect that work with urban consumers.

Nathan Kadish, director of investment strategy at the conservation organization, said the recent purchase of a former foundry in the Central Eastside will help bridge the two. The Redd, named for the riverbed nests where salmon spawn, will host small food-makers -- the people between farmers and diners -- who often don't have consistent use of kitchen space or room to store ingredients.

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From Wal-Mart to Farmers-Mart

Officials in McAllen, Texas, were faced with this problem when their local Walmart shut down. Instead of letting the giant store sit vacant, they did something amazing. They transformed it into the largest single-floor public library in America...including an indoor farmers market...

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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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Muvbox

Fast Food Nation meets Shipping Container Nation in a brilliant concept that not only looks amazing, but probably tastes just as good. The Müvbox is a new concept, which recently emerged from Montreal, Canada and is a shipping container that opens up into a full-fledged mobile, outdoor fast food restaurant. Think Adam Kalkin’s Push Button House with a gourmet kitchen inside and a fabulous graphic paint job. Oh, and they serve local lobster from the Magdalen Islands.

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Farmers Market Pop-ups

The AIA’s Small Project Practitioners Knowledge Community developed the Pop-Up Project Design Competition with the goal to re-imagine the farmer’s market canopy pop-up booth to make it easier for produce vendors to set up and transport their canopies and produce, while also helping them sell their product.

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Lessons From McDonald’s Clash With Older Koreans

Absent a senior center within walking distance, McDonald’s has become, by default, their home away from home. Its architecture offers big picture windows with views onto a major intersection. A seating area near the front door is set apart, half-obscured from the restaurant’s counter staff, with an extra-long banquette, ideal for large groups, people watching and privacy: the urban trifecta. McDonald’s is a ready-made NORC.

The official name is Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities. 

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Picnic Pavilion

New pavilions are revitalizing Dallas parks

Ultra Dining at Ultraviolet - At the restaurant Ultraviolet in Shanghai, the chef Paul Pairet has taken dining and turned it into theater, adding ambient music, unorthodox utensils and enhancing scent.

The Shed

The Shed is sort of a permanent farmers market and store; Founders Cindy Daniel and Doug Lipton " sought to create a place where the beauty and aliveness of the complete food cycle—the growing, preparing, and enjoying of food—would become visible, revealing and reinforcing the path from farm to table."

Sugar Windows

Willam Lamson Solarium