Conversation Piece

As part of the 2004 Interior Design Show in Toronto, three firms were asked to design spaces that responded to the question: What Makes You Wealthy? PLANT’s response was entitled Conversation Piece.

When we derive joy from what and who is around us, we achieve true wealth. Conversation Piece is a venue, container and initiator of the ritual of conversation. It is at once a room for conversation – the dining room – the table where telling can take place; and a repository of experience: the stuff of conversation.

In an era when the complexity of the global economy breeds an architectural response of complexity, instability, formlessness, contradiction, and digital density, we can only offer the opposite – calm, balance, simplicity, and true interactivity. Taking the time to appreciate a single pebble, a well-used spoon, or an old postcard can be genuinely enlightening, but it increases in richness tenfold when you can share your wonder with someone else. The 21-foot-long table and benches provide the place for gathering with family and friends, for eating and talking. Packed tightly with drawers, the table serves as a sideboard and holds memorabilia of past conversations – it is a container of conversation pieces.

Conversation Piece, like a conversation, is a fluid architectural concept, alluding to both inside and outside: it calls to mind a porch, a dining pavilion in a forest, a mediaeval banquet hall laden with banners of fabric, a loft interior with a dramatic dining installation. A small palette of materials – wood, fabric, plaster and light – is used to sculpt a rich visual and tactile experience.