The following is the architectural narrative of a slow meal. Slowness is rich with meaning and expectations. I sought to explore slow not in terms of speed or a measured passage of time, but in terms of the passage of opportunity.

Slow is the seizing of an opportunity - a pause for pleasure in the mundane. Architecture is fast, constantly engaging all our senses. It is through a deliberate pause that I find pleasure in thinking, drawing, and experiencing. Good taste is the wisdom that pleasure must be seized; the Latin sapor "taste" and sapiens "a wise man."

I intend to explore slow in architecture through taste. Taste and architecture are uniquely linked to place. They both immediately establish place by engaging all senses simultaneously. Knowledge of the qualities of an ingredient or material, both seen and the unseen, inform drawing and building just as they do cooking and the meal. A recipe does not mean that a result is prescribed. An imprecise precision exists in drawing and cooking that varies every time it is done, allowing new discoveries to be made.

I seek to discover how the act of making is evident in a drawing, a building, and a meal. The pleasure in making and the memory of the hand is a continuous narrative. I explore this narrative through a culinary school, restaurant, chefs residence, and a meal set on the Potomac River waterfront in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia at the terminus of Prince Street, south of Waterfront Park.