A New Dining Place

Athens, Greece

2018

In most cultures, food and ceremony go hand in hand. The proposed design attempts to emphasize the importance, as well as the intensity of the ceremonial process and experience through an architectural spatial operation that combines the solidity of an archetypal form with the transparency of a contemporary and more “vibrant” structure. This novel space is a form of a condenser which enhances the formation of social bonding, and at the same time addresses basic issues of food preparation and storage, as well as providing unique qualities of visual connectivity from the interior to the exterior and vice versa. 

In the history of architecture, the circular plan has a ceremonial significance (i.e. usually found in religious buildings). The proposed interior also has a circular layout, albeit an asymmetric one, as the emphasis is given to the dynamic character of the procession towards and inside the space. The dining table is placed under the main ceiling opening (an allusion to a dome’s oculus, an opening towards the sky, which also brings in natural light); its central part is “hollowed out” to make room for the person who will be serving the food to have more convenient and direct access to the table, thus engaging with the people who have gathered to eat, but without disturbing them or forcing them to change their body posture in order to be served (as is the usual case in an ordinary eating area in most restaurants, etc.).