COWHOUSE
TEAM: Angela Carbone – Tamara Jamil – United States of America – Cornell University
We must choose: Beef or revolution.
Where is the great American steer which once roamed among the human animal in Lower Manhattan? It has been banished from the mind’s eye of the urban American, relegated to architectural black-boxes: slaughterhouses. We automated our beef production in No-mans-lands, removing all connection, visibility, and responsibility to these creatures. Without bovine presence, the masses have blinded themselves to the creation and overindulgence of beef. Through typological reinvention, beef production is revolutionized for sustainable and conscientious consumption.
Cowhouse was borne from the idea that architecture can act as a site for physical production and as a vehicle to manufacture change. Following lines of production and reinserted into city landscape, patrons are invited to examine the life of cattle as they are raised, harvested, prepared, and ultimately consumed for human pleasure and sustenance. Its form, referential to slaughter and steakhouses, employs form as machinery to process. In turn, humans can engage in conversation about redesigning food networks and facilities with respect due to the animals, lands, and labourers involved. At the summit, patrons savour beefy thanksgivings. Through its form and its choreography of program, Cowhouse becomes a factory which produces awareness, compassion, education, nourishment, and delight.