FOOD DELIVERY APPS
WINTER 2020
COLLAB. HANA SAIFULLAH
INSTRUCTOR: CYRUS PEÑARROYO
TAUBMAN COLLEGE OF ARCHITECTURE AND URBAN PLANNING
With just a few simple taps, companies like UberEats, GrubHub, and Doordash promise you access to an infinite menu of food delivered to your door. Food delivery is one of the fastest-growing sectors in the foodservice industry. However, conventional restaurants aren’t always prepared for the additional delivery drivers waiting for orders at their doorstep, revealing an opportunity for investors to create a more efficient restaurant that no longer requires any expenses paid toward a dining experience in-house. Ghost kitchens are nondescript industrial kitchens hosting multiple restaurants under one roof where they share supplies and cooks, allowing them to cut down on overhead costs like furniture, wait staff, and branding. The chefs working for these businesses are cooking for anonymous diners and sending their food into the void of the internet. Now, only the delivery drivers are required to interact with these “restaurants”. This method of operation has opened the door for exclusively virtual restaurants controlled by large corporations.
“NETSCAPES visualized the complex ways in which internet culture pervades the built environment. In a new world of ubiquitous connectivity where more of our lives are conducted online, how might architects expand their toolkit by developing other representational modes to critically engage the invisible energies that shape and steer digital space? We addressed this question through three exercises that culminated in the design of videos exhibited online. Working in pairs and using a combination of drawings and animated collages, students developed a short narrative about a given topic from digital culture – from e-sports to e-trading to e-waste – and discussed the role that architecture plays in the story. “