From Chaos to the Dinner Table: Transforming the Relationship of Production and Consumption in the Mill District of Minneapolis, MN

Abstract

How can the rituals surrounding the dinner table inform our customs of production and consumption to create architectural space that resides in the transformative gap where consumer is producer and producer is consumer? With researching the past and studying the future, I hope to create a monument to creation. The metaphor I will use is The Table, a place for exchange. First I will research through reading past and current theoretical and contextual readings. From there I will create an artefact that allows us to embody the designed experience to represent the reality I hope to be present in my architectural solution. I am proposing a collection of open collaborative production spaces, interactive creation museum and communal urban farm resting within a portion of the mill ruins in Minneapolis, MN. It will effectively meld the urban fabric of downtown Minneapolis with the historic riverfront and early industrial mill network. This is rooted in the history of Minneapolis as the city grew from the production of the flour mills the Minneapolis Institute of Food rests on. This history of feeding the people will continue, except with a different sort of nourishment. My insertion into Minneapolis will provide for the community a place to value and learn the value of food.