Where Food and Architecture Meet

Niyanta: Food and architecture meet because they both bring together people and place. They are very different in their process—architecture is a lot more prolonged and food is a lot more immediate—but the result has a lot of overlaps.

My Indian heritage influences my practice through the way that we gather and maneuver around one another. I'm so drawn to food and architecture because both are things that are either not for just one person, or aren't ever designed by just one person.

We try not to have any waste in our practice because we think that every element can be used. That's through the produce we use and also the architecture elements—that everything has a place and everything should be celebrated. If there's waste from the cooking itself, it's turned into table decoration or some sort of sculptural element for the event.

Wes: We tend to try to avoid composting as just a way of dealing with excess. We look at the journey of the food post-event—we have friends with community fridges that will pack leftovers for the community, or we run fermenting events with young people to use excess produce.

Gathering Around Live Fire

Wes: The effect that live fire has on our projects is simply because it provides a place for people to gather, provides warmth, and promotes conversation. It gives a chance to have people assist in the cooking aspect and also be warm and happy. Cooking over live coals adds a char and adds a flavor, but having an ingredient that is really delicious to begin with lends itself to that style of cooking really well.

Niyanta: When you're cooking with fire, it requires you to be quite present. All you can think about is if your vegetables are going to burn, and it's nice to just be in that moment. Shared meals require you to converse with one another. Even a simple act like asking someone to pass you a plate of something—there's always a conversation happening with your actions. It's a beautiful way for us to gather.

A small detail that I care about is I always try to leave a little task for someone. It might be chopping something, it might be washing something. But what that does is it invites the person into the meal—not just as a guest, but as a participant.

Wes: What we hope is held after the event is further collaboration and connection. We've had the privilege to see people meeting new people, or seeing the project extend through others collaborating further. Cooking for people nourishes me through a feeling of having people's needs met. Knowing that the other person has benefited from my gift.

Niyanta: Once the lunch is finished, it’s the experience itself that remains. Food is immediate; it doesn't last. But the bricks are modular, so they can be recreated for whatever meal the next gathering needs to have. It will never be the exact same, but you can expand from whatever existed. The key thing that I get from nourishing others is my ability to share my knowledge with others—whether that's seasonality, my heritage, or how something could be cooked. It's a little bit of education that they can take with them.