Alimentary Design

If you are what you eat, this studio will investigate how and what we eat can be used as a catalyst to reconsider architecture and urban design models to create new typologies based on the alimentary component of human life. Food transcends cultural and temporal boundaries, constitutes the largest industry in the world, and is an inescapable and essential fundamental. Continuing the work begun in Fall 2013, this studio will investigate the multiple scales and processes involved with food and beverage, including specific topics such as the future of agriculture and aquaculture, food security and the global hunger epidemic, and culinary innovation in storage, distribution, and production.

Rather than addressing one site or one program, each student will address a particular area of research to become the authority on a particular issue related to architecture and urbanism within the topic of food and beverage to develop their own special knowledge and expertise. Through this approach, the work will be both diverse and comprehensive, enabling students to think beyond the typical boundaries of design. The research will be developed in collaboration with the James Beard Foundation in New York, leading experts in the field, as well as the Harvard Law School’s Food Law and Policy Clinic into super-unique and highly-specialized design proposals that have the potential to be implemented. Progress work will be presented at the James Beard Foundation Food Conference in October 2014 and at the USA Pavilion at the Expo Milano 2015 for the theme American Food 2.0: United to Feed the Planet.