Dinner Parti

This capstone is a body of work that investigates the architectural relationships among event, documentation, material production, and user interaction through the lens of social dining. A Picnic, Thanksgiving, and Solo dining are the three dining scenarios that are the subject of these analytical and design investigations. The architectural design process is a part of the creative nonfiction narrative through the design of three corresponding artifacts that perform as the events’ spatial and material analogs: The Picnic Mound, The Thanksgiving Tables, and the Solo Couch. These artifacts aim to create new readings of user interactions with the social dining event as it is understood, misunderstood, or taken for granted in the contemporary context. Subsequent testing through an exhibition of those artifacts sought to both access design possibilities of an architectural-social interface and qualify the capacity for these thesis investigations to create spatial conditions that reinforce the communicative possibilities of the architectural surface and promote social sustenance. The conclusion is that each artifact interfaced with the user in different ways with varying degrees of success. However, each spurred basic sets of responses, relating back to aspects of the original events themselves and preconceived ideas of how one should act in each situation. The more “casual” events of picnic and solo were met with actions like lying down, and these were also the only two that a toddler was allowed to play with by her parents. The thanksgiving table, on the other hand, remained a space of more reserved allure rather than playfulness. Whiel it gathered people together within the exhibition space, its separate surfaces of differing heights created separations and distinctions in groups as well as hierarchy. A creative nonfiction narrative is the architectural capstone supplement. It is divided into four parts, the first three about the Picnic, Thanksgiving, and Solo dining events, while the fourth is based on the exhibition comprised of artifacts designed from the previous three events