In the age of urbanisation and digitalisation it is easy to forget how important physical meetings and interactions are for our well-being. Open for anyone, the purpose of Our Urban Kitchen is to bring people together around the act of cooking and eating.
The kitchen is to be situated in the future park Fållan in Slakthusområdet, Stockholm. A site that has been central for the meat production of the city for the past hundred years is now changing from an industrial area into a new urban neighbourhood. As meat production moves out of the city it inspires our food culture to change towards a more plant-based diet. Our Urban Kitchen aims to bring the heritage of cooking meat into a vegetable-based kitchen in the public space.
The kitchen is an assembly consisting of five different actors (products). In this project I have chosen to focus on the main actor - the smoker. The role of the smoker is to communicate the site’s narrative and pass on its history to future generations. In addition to the smoker, I have conceptualized four other actors and their roles in the kitchen. The fireplace (Beacon) that provides heat, a place to cook as well as activate the site; the seating furniture that provides a place to gather and somewhere to rest; the workbench that allows preparation of food; the water tap that provides water to drink and to cook with.