W2020 Arch597 Detailing

Cooking With Ponti

Detailed Instructions for Furniture and Food

Project Designers

· Austen Gileen-Keeney
· Madeline Kil
· Carl Eppinger
· Chia-Ching Yen
· Chih Jou Jessica Lin
· Monik Gada
· Asya Shine
· Rachel Williams
· Gabby Clune

Eat With Your Eyes

As a seminar initially dedicated to the design and fabrication of objects and furniture, the trajectory of our work was radically altered by current events, prompting a revision to our planned goals. Since we are unable to build at this time, our goal was to prepare to build at a later time. That meant our productive efforts turned towards the communication of each designer’s specific intentions, materials and fabrication processes.

Since the underlying ethos of the seminar is how these objects frame and enhance the social context of their use, what better way might there be than to consider them in the context of enjoying and sharing food?

Instructions for Construction and Recipes for Cooking

As architects we are famililar with producing construction documents for buildings and associated written specifications. These documents, however, rely on often arcane methods of communication sometimes at odds with the qualilties and character of the things that are sought to be constructed. In his book “The Craftsman” Richard Sennett writes persuasively about both the pleasure and usefulness of “Expressive Instructions” --used in communicating both the objective and subjective ambitions and qualities involved with making--and in the specific examples he describes: in the preparation of food.

These nine designers have developed a cookbook of furniture designs inspired by our study of Gio Ponti.
The goal of the cookbook is to seamlessly interweave “expressive instructions” for both furniture fabrication and recipes for cooking. In many ways, the content of both is akin to the underlying content of any CSI specification section in its organized and what information is included in Parts 1, 2 and 3.

While these recipes aren’t necessarliy Italian in orgin or something Ponti himself might prepare, they do shine another light on our main interests this semester: Ponti’s focus proportion, pattern and detail. The design of the furniture itself as well as the interweave of instructions for fabricating and cooking reflect each designer’s embrace and shared delight in the influence of Ponti in their design work.

Una musica dolce suonava soltanto per noi.....

︎ ︎ ︎

CONTACT
Mick Kennedy
Taubman College of Architecture
Ann Arbor, Michigan
mickk@umich.edu

Two Guys From Texas Architects
Austin, TX + Ann Arbor, MI
travegliaesonno@gmail.com

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Chia-Ching Yen