What If?

Abstract

The relations between us and food have become distorted, deviated from their origin and meaning in our daily lives. Where solutions are sought in consciousness, this research focuses on the subconscious level of our relation with food. By changing our perception of food, using architecture as a medium between us, the subject, and food, the object. By researching within a phenomenological framework, nine speculative scenarios have been made with the goal to understand how to influence the public by storytelling in writing, drawing and architecture. The question asked: How can speculative design help architecture enable a meaningful relation between us and food? Starting with understanding the distinction between object, subject, and how they are related, the search continues for architectural means to make a place that enables a change of perception. What changes this perception, is often a small trigger, a salient detail that can be highlighted in design, inviting a change in meaning of the object for the subject. An interplay of inside and outside, authenticity and inauthenticity, will allow for a change in perceiving and understanding both food and ourselves. That is how a fixed and frustrating relation with food can be abandoned, and how a meaningful relation is enabled.