Design for Dining: The Big Reveal

This week we installed our dining vignette at The Merchant in Downtown Crossing as part of the Design for Dining exhibition organized by Design Museum Boston.

At PAYETTE we consider the act of dining out as a social activity and our vignette engages three scales of community: the neighborhood to the restaurant, the restaurant to the table and the table to the diner.

The two steel frames highlight the views from the neighborhood and the restaurant to one another, and to the table itself. When seated at the table the frames demarcate space in-between the community outside and within the restaurant. It invites both the city and the restaurant to the table. The screens within the frames change over the duration of the installation to augment these relationships. Each screen change reveals new relationships between the neighborhood, restaurant and the diners.

The curved table surface allows for varied interactions between diners depending on the size of the party at the table and how they chose to sit along its edge. We constructed the table to emphasize its horizontal nature. By using a fabricated steel substructure to support the red steel frames, we were able to reduce the table surface itself to a thin edge.

The table vignette is designed to demonstrate the communal nature of dining, encouraging the patrons to engage with their environment and the physical table.

This was the culmination of many weeks designing, detailing and fabricating the table to encourage the community to engage with the design elements inherent with public dining.

The vignette will exist and adapt within the space for the next 6 months and house events and functions. It is available for booking and general dining for all.

We’d like to give special thanks to the Design Museum Boston for inviting us to participate. We hope that diners will enjoy their experience at our table, and we encourage you to take advantage of the special menu offered by The Merchant and the six other participating restaurants until the exhibit closes in November.

Please share your experiences on social media (Twitter / Instagram: @PAYETTEpeople) with the hashtag #DMBDining — we’d love to hear what you think!