Project Synopsis
Through this project, we tried to re-imagine the future of food and dining experiences and speculated for a world set in 2072.
The patrons of "Hygieia" visit the restaurant and are seated by the staff. Since it is a communal dining experience people from different groups can be seated at the same table.
Once seated, the patrons use their smartphones to scan a code on their plate placed in front of them and this opens up the Menu of the restaurant. The menu depicts the 3D representations of the foods along with information such as the name, the origins, the ingredients, and the nutritional value of the foods.
The food itself looks different as the ingredients are re-imagined from a future perspective.
This project was meant to spark conversation about what the future of food might look like and what the possible outcomes of climate change, soil pollution, and advancement of technology on food could be.
The patrons of "Hygieia" visit the restaurant and are seated by the staff. Since it is a communal dining experience people from different groups can be seated at the same table.
Once seated, the patrons use their smartphones to scan a code on their plate placed in front of them and this opens up the Menu of the restaurant. The menu depicts the 3D representations of the foods along with information such as the name, the origins, the ingredients, and the nutritional value of the foods.
The food itself looks different as the ingredients are re-imagined from a future perspective.
This project was meant to spark conversation about what the future of food might look like and what the possible outcomes of climate change, soil pollution, and advancement of technology on food could be.
Setting the scene
It is the year 2072, and as the human race, we have developed more technology that helps us in various activities in different sectors, most prominently seen in the farming and agricultural sectors.
Soil has been polluted in many parts of the world beyond repair, and the popular alternatives that are being used are lab-grown produce, hydroponics and aquaponics, and 3D Printing food.
Due to the change in the way of procuring our food, humans have become more health conscious and emphasize eating healthy, nutrition-rich food.
That being said, tracking the nutrients in foods can turn obsessive, and as a race, we have built technology and products that “feed” this obsession.
How society has changed
With the Nutrition Awareness Movement of 2050 educating people on the effects of unhealthy food and the benefits of a nutritious diet, human beings have become conscious consumers in terms of what they put into their systems.
With the vast knowledge of the internet and Web 3.0 being prominent, humans are more disconnected from the real world and more immersed in the virtual world, and what the mixed media technology that is at their fingertips shows them.
Food influencers and Health Bars are the rage and finding the next best immersive healthy dining experience is what most young adults look for when they are narrowing down places to meet up.
A typical Health Bar experience in 2072 - Hygieia
The newly opened health bar, “Hygieia” (named after the Greek Goddess of Health) is one of the most popular eateries in town. With authentic, top-of-the-line Ingredient 3D Printers and great service provided by the staff and delivery bots, Hygieia promises a wholistic food experience. Keeping nutrition at its core, this health bar makes sure to satisfy your dietary needs like no other with its unique ordering system!
Process Documentation
Research
As a team, we did a lot of research on many topics covering - Over processing of food, ingredients used in different cultures, the global food crisis, food systems, and future technologies that can aid create a future food experience.
All this can be found in our Miro Board
All this can be found in our Miro Board
Project Values
The overall values we want to prioritize in the project are Empathy and Connection to Others. We want to ensure that those who go through the experience exit with a greater sense of belonging in their communities and understanding of those with different experiences. Adjacent to this we want to focus on communication and authenticity of our experience, making sure we get it right and convey our ideas. Also, we need to think about food.
Ideation
Below are a few of the ideation sketches that we created after we researched the technology used to create futuristic food experiences.
Since we were designing for a future world, it only felt appropriate to use an AI art-generating program to help show us what a futuristic restaurant could look like!
Thus, using Dall-E, an open source AI-generated art creator, these were the images that resulted when we prompted it with the text -
"A futuristic restaurant, with people sitting at the dining table, using Augmented Reality devices and projection mapping to browse through food menus"
Storyboarding the Final Idea
Audience Attractors
- The audience is anyone with a smartphone device capable of augmented reality
- Anyone who is interested in food
- The audience will take away ideas of future foods, culture, how foods in the future evolve from different cultures and parts of the world, the type of ingredients that compose the foods of the future, and how they benefit the people of the future
- Accessible via a web link, content may be experienced visually or via audio description
Creating the AR Menu
To create the AR menu, we started by scanning real foods that we created using a method called Photogrammetry. This was done using an App called Polycam.
We then took these scans into Blender and cleaned up the 3D models.
The cleaned-up 3D models were then brought into Meta Spark AR, a tool used to create Facebook and Instagram Filters. Here we added the text overlays that described the food and finally created the Menu as an AR Filter.
