Regardless of the sculptured form of an architectural intervention, it is important in these times that people are routinely challenged to participate in the physical world in some form of social interaction. The manifestation of the programme plays an essential role in this ambition. This is new ground for the architect, who firstly has to succeed in tempting people to participate and then to reward them with a pure architectural experience.

This pop-up restaurant can be put up in four hours and offers space for one hundred guests. It has the biggest farmer’s oak table in the world. The benches are a metre deep, which makes different ways of sitting possible while enjoying the four-hour long dinner of locally sourced produce. Service staff walk on the benches and bend over the guests as if they were lying on the ground and they sometimes walk on the table as well. This very informal atmosphere finally puts the guests in the mood for dancing on the table themselves at the end of the long dinner. Everything is done in the name of a total experience.

The ‘Boerenwerledkeuken Restaurant’ travelled through the Netherlands, visiting farms in every province. The pavilion was also exhibited at ‘Parasite Paradise‘ in 2003 (temporary masterplan by Luc Deleu).