Process
MOOD BOARDS
Creativity is messy...
Designing Places to Eat
People experience restaurants in their body—so that is where the design starts for
me, in my body, as feeling, sensation, an emotional tone, or note. I want to make
people feel safe, at home, ensconced, in every place—but each approach is a little
dierent. That feeling trickles down into thoughts, ideas, concepts….becoming
manifest and concrete from the most abstract.
Vinaigrette Santa Fe
Vinaigrette Albuquerque
Vinaigrette Austin
Modern General Santa Fe
Vinaigrette Santa Fe
Vinaigrette Santa Fe
I am a business owner, farmer, cook and designer. I love trees, dirt, books, shoes, the sound of pages
turning, lemon juice on everything. I’m scrappy. I try to meditate, but sometimes I don’t. I have almost 200 employees, now, who I love, but who sometimes make me crazy. My life isn’t balanced with my
work (it’s more of a soupy mush, I’d say); I’m not an expert on wellness; I’m a work in progress. I think
nature has all the answers, and I’m….
Vinaigrette Albuquerque
Vinaigrette Albuquerque
I am a business owner, farmer, cook and designer. I love trees, dirt, books, shoes, the sound of pages
turning, lemon juice on everything. I’m scrappy. I try to meditate, but sometimes I don’t. I have almost 200 employees, now, who I love, but who sometimes make me crazy. My life isn’t balanced with my
work (it’s more of a soupy mush, I’d say); I’m not an expert on wellness; I’m a work in progress. I think
nature has all the answers, and I’m….
Vinaigrette Austin
Vinaigrette Austin
I am a business owner, farmer, cook and designer. I love trees, dirt, books, shoes, the sound of pages
turning, lemon juice on everything. I’m scrappy. I try to meditate, but sometimes I don’t. I have almost 200 employees, now, who I love, but who sometimes make me crazy. My life isn’t balanced with my
work (it’s more of a soupy mush, I’d say); I’m not an expert on wellness; I’m a work in progress. I think
nature has all the answers, and I’m….
Modern General Santa Fe
Modern General Santa Fe
I am a business owner, farmer, cook and designer. I love trees, dirt, books, shoes, the sound of pages
turning, lemon juice on everything. I’m scrappy. I try to meditate, but sometimes I don’t. I have almost 200 employees, now, who I love, but who sometimes make me crazy. My life isn’t balanced with my
work (it’s more of a soupy mush, I’d say); I’m not an expert on wellness; I’m a work in progress. I think
nature has all the answers, and I’m….
Beauty is that in the presence of which we feel more alive.
PROCESS
Designing places, for me, is a process of uncovering. It starts out with possibility, and emotion, and then it ends with specific, concrete detail.
Every Project....
...begins with a feeling
A tangle of emotions I want to illicit, and then the ideas and the answers unfurl from there—the menu, the flow, the colors, the fixtures and the finishes, getting more and more specific, like the narrowing of a funnel. But it all starts with a desire to ignite a certain feeling or set of feelings that exist like an unsung musical chord in your mind—hazy and imaginary and yet also resonant, pure.
...moves
I have to keep going back to that feeling as I work my way through the funnel of design—especially when I get stuck. I pull it up in my mind and hold it there, and start to see things, muzzy at first but increasingly clear. Sometimes ideas come like epiphanies, and you jump forward to the end and bring what you see back to the beginning—the perfect chair! transcendent lighting!— but mostly you have to be patient.
...is a lesson in faith
Design is not all rational, known. Like a seed, it has to germinate. You don’t get all the answers at once; they come when they are ready, germinating in some secret unconscious place in the mind. Like the restless seed in Soos’ poem—the “darkness of being planted” and the “struggle towards the light” are as much a part of the process as the visible green growth and flowering—the stuff you can see, the manifestations.
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Designing Places to Eat
People experience restaurants in their body—so that is where the design starts for
me, in my body, as feeling, sensation, an emotional tone, or note. I want to make
people feel safe, at home, ensconced, in every place—but each approach is a little
dierent. That feeling trickles down into thoughts, ideas, concepts….becoming
manifest and concrete from the most abstract.
