IN-PERSON: Livable Cities – New York

Abstract

DINING THRESHOLDS is a multi-layered project; a critical and ongoing body of work surrounding the implementation of THE OUTDOOR DINING CONSTRUCTS; the tectonic design response to the inability to dine safely indoors at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic as it impacted New York City in March 2020. The study acts as an archive consisting of intricately detailed photographs, video and audio, sketches, measured drawings and modeled documentation, spatial analyses, interviews, and critical essays surrounding this historic moment in our lives. The organizing factor for the documentation of DINING THRESHOLDS is the NYC Subway. Riding each line and stopping only at the local stops, a two block radius acts as boundary to define the local neighborhood within which the research occurs. The correlation of community with the most communal transportation system is employed with the hopes of circumventing destination locations outside of residential neighborhoods. This was the initial rule of organization to both begin and frame the research. The project reflects and is driven by how these constructs have redefined the boundaries between restaurant interiors and exteriors and the resulting changes in activation of the street, the restaurant industry, the dining experience, the relationships between certain public and private events, environmental conditions, the temporality of design, and how these changes may act as informants and create an opportunity for permanent change in how we both design and occupy these spaces and our streets. Findings reveal design at its best and at its most essential, it locates prepared food deserts where dining constructs did not exist, and extravagant spaces which included a clear separation between those serving and those being served. The threshold of dining is not as it once seemed, a new line between interior and exterior has been drawn and we have the opportunity to comprehensively look at these nascent spaces and their potential.