Dinner is Served

The third years have just made it through their first formal design-build project 'Dinner is Served'. In small groups of half a dozen students, they design a pavilion and a dinner for a guest critic who shares an evening with the students eating in their pavilion on campus. Sweet deal for the guest critic. The project is completely funded by the students and constructed on a site of their choice along the Rideau River. This project is always an eye-opener in the truest transition from a small scale sketch to a full 1:1 construction. It's also one of the most valuable design experiences with materials and lighting (and cooking skills).

My personal experience in 2004 was very good. Our group of five was divided into different concentrations. I designed and built most of the dinner table and chairs out of concrete and wood -- others worked on the wood frame construction, materials acquisition, and some on the meal preparation. Our guest critic was Janine Debanné, a wonderful guest whom we were extremely keen to have, as our design was very much focused on sensitive elements like framing views, transition of spaces, subtleties of sound and sight. She picked up on a lot of these moves and we felt rewarded for that. Everyone has one or two meals which are unforgettable, whether it was the company, the sensual experience, or maybe the quantity of food -- this evening was definitely one of the most memorable in all of those possibilities.

This year, there were a few projects of note, but I wasn't able to see any of them the night of completion. I was however able to scrounge up a few images from various facebook albums.



Here's a composed 2-page folio panel of our finished pavilion in 2004: