By Kaitlyn Carroll
Hearing the word design, most people would think of furniture, clothes and cars, but Midtown’s own Museum of Design Atlanta (MODA) has gone in a completely different direction.
MODA’s new exhibit Food by Design: Sustaining the Future, which can be viewed until May 7, displays a wide selection of prototypes and projects showcasing the future of food production and consumption.
With the Earth’s population expected to increase by an additional one-third its size by 2050, designers and innovators are joining together to discover ways to improve farming, decrease food waste and find sustainable food systems.
The exhibit begins with a long hallway of colorful photographs and descriptions regarding the growth and distribution methods currently used within the United States and in the local community. For instance, in fall 2017, Atlanta will be using the empty space under powerlines for farming. This method has already shown success in other urban areas such as Toronto and Los Angeles, promising similar success for Atlanta.
To show how different processes like this one will work, MODA places television screens with informational videos throughout the exhibit. To the right of the hallway is a glimpse into the future of grocery shopping. The local grocery stores we see and use today are based off of designs from the 1940s. As the times change, however, customers now seek a more convenient, time-saving way to buy goods.
In order to adjust to consumers’ evolving expectations, countries around the world have started to redesign the grocery store. Ideas of in-store vertical farming, drive-in grocery stores, apps which suggest certain foods for customers, and Amazon Go are not only being drawn up but being put to use.
In the final section of the exhibit, the museum displays innovative and environmentally-friendly methods that humans can employ to grow more food in less space. This section includes visuals of future compost practices and a display of vertical farming. After visitors finish their walk through, they can stop at a gumball machine filled with 50-cent seed bombs in order to do their own part in making food more sustainable.
Another interactive feature of the exhibit are tables supplied with sketchbooks and colored pencils, which were located in the center of the room. Both adults and kids are encouraged to doodle their ideas about food-related designs. MODA will further incorporate the theme of designing sustainable food systems into their adult and kid classes.
This exhibit shows the variety of designs of sustainable food systems for potential future use.
