Process: Shared Kitchen

Shared Kitchen

A Spatial Intervention Prototype

Our goal was to use intentional abstraction, to provide the experience of cooking together and simulate the feeling/awareness of another person’s presence. Slight movements and subtle sounds are what allow us to feel connected to each others presence.

Project Information:

Project Type: Academic, Product Design

Professor: Violet Whitney

Partner(s): Karan Matta, Kylie Walker, Takashi Honzawa

Value Proposition

Whether it’s the comfort of sitting together watching a movie, just passing by one another throughout the day, or even doing an activity such as cooking together. All these moments throughout the day don’t need a constant face to face conversation to be fulfilling or significant. Just the presence of another person fills and enhances a space beyond the realm in which a voice or conversation can fully emulate.

This nonverbal sense of awareness and interaction with another person is what inspired our intervention. The feeling/awareness of another person’s presence from slight movements and subtle sounds is what allows us to feel connected to their presence.

Precedence

Top: McDonalds Kitchen Layout

Bottom: Time and Motion Study by Frank and Lillian Gilbreth

Taking cues from the time and motion studies as well as the kitchen layout from McDonalds, this project is tracking the human motion and procedural actions within a kitchen. Contrary to the precedence, efficiency is traded in for ambient observation. A user is meant to feel and perceive the presence of the other user(s) and start imagining how each are using their respective spaces.

Prototype Design

Hardware List:

(4) Smart Bulbs

(2) Smart Speakers

(2) External Camera

(2) Laptop

(2) Persons wearing Fiducial Markers

Software List:

Processing Sketch

Webhooks

IFTTT Recipe

Phillips Hue Light

Spotify

View from the Camera

Using Processing 4.0 and a fiduciary tracking base, we created a state tracking JavaScript which changed based on the fiducial x-position. Depending on the x-position, a webhook get request would be send to our IFTTT recipe’s. With specific IFTTT recipe’s assigned to an x-position range, our prototype will change the spatial state of our partners kitchen.