Culinary Architecture

Over the course of the last two semesters, I began a journey to bridge my previous four years of education in an Architecture program with my passion for desserts. Through this process I learned how to approach the design of products which contain perishable materials and other characteristics that are not present in buildings. Throughout the year I tested the materiality of caramel, studied and brought about order in organic materials, and applied architectural design techniques to desserts.

I found along the way that the culinary arts and architecture are linked in many respects. The considerations of scale, form, texture, light, and composition are some of the most basic and easily recognized links between the two areas. Architecture as a discipline is founded on process and development. This has taught me to view design as a multistep and iterative process; each idea is built off another and this development is what brings about the desired result. Designing desserts is no different. It starts with an idea about shape or color (and flavor), and develops into an exploration of new ideas and techniques to create something that develops the idea further.

Over this year my process developed into a cyclical set of events: Initial idea, first drafts, presentation and feedback, alterations made of the design, further critique, final adaptations made, final presentation of the built work, then working on a new idea, and then repeating. Some designs took more loops around the design-process-track and some took less, but regardless, all critical elements of the design were made during the process of building ideas upon earlier ideas.

When I began studying the culinary arts discipline, I found that there were many creations concerned with flavor or appearance, but often these elements did not coincide in the same dessert. I believe combining beautiful design work with delicious flavor profiles is the answer to bonding the complex ideals celebrated in architecture and the exciting and entertaining world of the culinary arts. Through studying the link between these two disciplines I have become a better designer and I believe that architecturally-designed desserts have a future.

To read about my process throughout the year and see what I created, begin here.