The Potluck Restaurant

Thursday 30 August 2012



This mix-and-match restaurant concept is the graduation project of RCA student Lola Lely. Called the Potluck Restaurant, the project aims to bring community spirit back to Londoners' lives.



Long-handled spoons encourage guests to feed each other across the table, and multi-layered pots reveal course after course of surprising food - with some courses requiring guests to 'forage' from the central pot, and others inviting them to share their utensils with one another.



Guests are invited to swap tables between courses, taking just their spoons and their stools away with them to do so.



The restaurant was open 10.30am - 6pm, from 28 June - 1 July 2012, at the RCA 2012 graduation show, Show RCA. More of Lely's project notes can be found on her blog.

Potluck centrepiece by Lola Lely: Spun aluminium, enamel, rubber, maple and silk fishing thread.
For more examples of designs that invite the user to show generosity in this way, subscribers can read our recent report, Designed to Share.
Potluck table and stools by Lola Lely: maple with mild steel detail


Potluck spoons by Lola Lely & Aninna Gaehwile: 3D printed in stainless steel, silicon and silk fishing thread detail