Culinary community: Collaborative Relationship Building through Improvisational Fine Dining

Author

Victoria GoodismanFollow

Date of Award

Spring 6-1-2024

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Architecture (MArch)

Department

Architecture

First Advisor

Lafayette Cruise

Second Advisor

Gabriel Feld

Third Advisor

Christopher Bardt

Abstract

I am redesigning the fine dining experience to create a space for community building and forming new interpersonal bonds. In response to the pandemic, people learned the pressing need for face to face connection. The current landscape of fine dining inadvertently perpetuates isolation by creating a hierarchical dynamic that separates customers from service staff. This project proposes a restaurant where patrons actively participate in creating their dining experience, blurring the lines between customers and staff. By understanding the restaurant experience through the lens of performance and improvisational theater, we can redefine how people engage with this space. Customers collectively assume responsibilities ranging from chef to lighting designer in a designed restaurant space that facilitates and encourages collaboration. By organizing workstations with strategic overlap, customers assigned different roles and responsibilities have to work together and share a space. This shared experience brings new people together, encourages collaboration and creates new relationships.

Recommended Citation

Goodisman, Victoria, "Culinary community: Collaborative Relationship Building through Improvisational Fine Dining" (2024). Masters Theses. 1200.
https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/masterstheses/1200

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.