These are more than spatial or formal gestures. The ability to see people elsewhere in the restaurant engaged in, for example, a casual drink at the bar or enjoying a complex multi-course meal, is central to our belief that this diversity enlivens everyone's experience. Yet, these visual interpenetrations should not intrude on any individual experience. Material changes, furniture placement, lighting, artwork to mark boundaries or to punctuate visual axes are devices that tangibly separate one space from another without the need to create spatial boxes. Note also the careful arrangement of the dining rooms themselves. Our first instinct, one that is informed by the research we conduct wherever we travel, is that people feel comfortable when their location with respect to others is clearly defined. Our restaurants typically demonstrate a grouping of tables in ways that encourage the perception of a room as having a core and a perimeter, with three distinct layers of space across their width. We observed that the arrangement of interior spaces in thirds clarifies an individual's position in a room. The principle of three tables across is effectively a strategy of creating perimeter and center, polarities of experience that communicate their presence in spatial terms and that help the guests situate themselves physically and emotionally (Figures 8 A,B). Materialization While the plan gives structure and form to the architecture of restaurants, the three- dimensional development of the space — its materialization — is the means by which the spatial concepts embedded in the plan are fully realized (Figure 9). This is evident in all our work, but in particular in Craft, the first restaurant we completed for Tom Colicchio as an independent chef and restaurateur (Figure 10). Tom wanted to open a restaurant whose hallmark would be simple expert culinary execution: meats and vegetables prepared expertly in dishes distinctive according to the unique tastes of the ingredients. In his restaurant, Tom exercised his "craft" as the means by which raw material is transformed into a finished product.
Figure 8 A,B: Plans of Eleven Madison Park and Craft showing three tables across the room
Figure 9: Materials reinforcing sense of place
Figure 10: Craft: Scale, texture, color, and density of materials reinforcing sense of place
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