Intimate Connections explores the relationship between architecture and gustatory experience, questioning how space can extend, intensify, and transform the perception of taste. The workshop approaches architecture not as a purely functional framework, but as a sensitive device capable of acting on the body, the senses, and memory. Through a critical and experimental approach, students are invited to consider space as an active partner in the culinary experience.
The workshop proposes a cross-disciplinary reflection between architecture, gastronomy, and sensory design. Students analyze how materiality, light, acoustics, spatial rhythms, and scenographic devices influence taste perception and construct intimate experiences.
The work alternates between theoretical input, discussions, and practical experimentation. Students develop projects and micro-installations using various tools—drawing, writing, models, scenography, and photography—to imagine situations in which architecture becomes an extension of the act of eating. The workshop seeks to move beyond a compartmentalized vision of architecture and gastronomy, conceiving immersive experiences where space and flavor intertwine through a critical and sensitive approach.
Graduated from Confluence Institute in 2020, Ophélie Férédie developed a transversal background across art galleries, furniture design, floristry, and scenography before pursuing her architectural practice. This diversity informs an approach attentive to uses, atmospheres, and the relationships between objects, spaces, and bodies. She advocates for an understanding of architecture as an open discipline at the intersection of experience and emotion.
