Architects in supermarkets
The Harvard architecture students watched intently as Anne Liu presented slides of her preliminary design proposals. They were not for a house, or for a building, but for a jar of peanut butter. “The idea is that you are what you buy,” said the third-year master of architecture student. She illustrated her branding concept for Jif organic peanut butter: “Taste you can see. Purity you can trust.” She showed a container design for a jar with caps at both ends. She detailed her palette of colors, chosen to stand out against the peanut brown. Liu was rejiggering Jif for an unusual Graduate School of Design (GSD) seminar taught in an unusual fashion by an unusual set of teachers. “Paper or Plastic: Re-Inventing Shelf Life in the Supermarket Landscape” emerged from the obsession of identical twins Teman and Teran Evans, both Harvard GSD alumni (’04) who have expanded their architectural training into territory where...