Community Food Assemblies

In User-Oriented Collaborative Design, our team of four worked with a specific user group– cottage food makers, or people who make food products at home and sell them at farmers markets– over the course of a semester to design a product or service that would appeal to them and improve their lives in a meaningful way.

Through weeks of visits, interviews, and interactions with local cottage food makers, we saw that our user group was extremely community-oriented, and found a lot of meaning in educating and connecting with their local communities through food. They found that food broke cultural barriers, and encouraged people to be more curious about one another. They enjoyed sharing their knowledge with others, and loved getting feedback on the work that they did.

What we came up with was the Community Food Assembly: a public place for members of the community to gather that centered around our user group, who would serve as sort of “Food Gurus”. In these spaces, our Food Gurus could:

• lead classes on a certain food, cuisine, or culture
• lead preparation for a weekly community meal
• sell their products at a store located within the space
• interface with the local community to promote local food and farming

Below are a few posters detailing our vision, including some personas we made to exemplify our user group, and the impact that we would hope to see made by a Community Food Assembly.

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