This was an immersive artwork developed for artist Vipoo Srivilasa’s project, A Random Meal, for Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney’s C3West program.

The spring points for the project are two universal symbols of food and security; a dinner plate and a simple pitched roof with welcome mat and front door.

A dinner plate simultaneously represents the absence of food and the possibility of receiving food. Here we employ the simple form of the dinner plate and convert it into a skin for the building using both biodegradable sugarcane pulp plates and locally made ceramic plates the artist Vipoo Srivilasa will make with local artisans. The dinner plates are transformed into roof tiles and a decorative scale-like skin. Their translucency works both for illuminating the interior during the day and as a lantern at night.

The simple and almost universal symbol for home, a pitched roof with front door, porch and welcome mat, is of a scale that is welcoming, familiar and personable. It represents this inherent and universal desire for security and comfort at home.

The circular plan form, derived from the dinner plate, is a universal symbol of change and creation and designed to make an inclusive and democratic social space for the sharing of food and education about the experience of food insecurity. The interior courtyard is the communal space for conversation and the sharing of a meal.