Precis

Culture, food and space


When we have food from another country, we can say that we are encountering of the culture in that country. This is because food can be seen as the condensation of every day life. If we encounter this food in a right space, a synergistic effect is created and it will be a special memory. My thesis project is a space for food, especially based on Cuban Chinese culture. The space contains a cooking studio, a restaurant and a gourmet shop. My challenge is to create a space that combines the different characters of these three elements harmonizing culture, food, and space in a way that will produce synergy.

The space is located in DUMBO. DUMBO is an energetic artistic community which has a vibrant history and a stunning view at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge. This merit plays an important part in making it an axis of visual sequences. As west met east, they were both transformed, such as Cuban Chinese. The space will reflect this mutual transformation, as every element in the space is interwoven with every other element. Sometimes, different purposes or dissimilar properties penetrate each other and some spaces peek through the other spaces. It makes an experience of overlapping layers in one point of view. This aesthetic quality expression will give patrons an opportunity to participate in the performance of cooking, and to encounter unexpected scenes and partake in new cultural experiences.

My intent for this project is to discover how spaces are expressed and developed during the assimilation and deformation of converging cultures and how such spaces can be harmonized under a multi-cultural theme. I would ultimately like to integrate the technical, aesthetic, and intellectual aspects of time and space in this project.