AUD’s School of Architecture, Art and Design’s (SAAD) innovative Architecture course entitled ArchEatable, founded and taught by Jose Carrillo, Associate Professor of Architecture, has collaborated with the Chocolate Academy in Dubai to enter this year’s World Chocolate Masters Competition. This year’s finalist, Architecture student Farah Ali, has been chosen to work side by side with the Chocolate Academy’s Head Chef, Romain Renard, on her astounding chocolate creation “DI-VULGE.”

ArchEatable, the ephemeral Art of Gastronomy throughout Architecture & Digital Fabrication, is an AUD course designed by Professor Jose Carrillo that has a unique and non-conventional academic approach to teaching architecture through designing and producing edible works of art. Seeking to promote trans and inter-disciplinarity at both the professional and the university level, the course has several external components to give students first hand work experience. Students establish collaborations with elite pastry chefs within the region to learn the techniques needed to combine patisserie and architecture. The end results are by no means possible without this cross-knowledge. Students and chefs make a final product that responds to a multidisciplinary perspective.

The third edition of ArchEatable 2020 counted a total of 28 distinguished members among researchers, international chefs and professionals from the culinary world as part of the jury panel that, along with the professor, evaluated the course designs and participate in the Final Event. The judges, from 23 different cities around the globe, joined the Showcase & Awards Ceremony on-line event hosted by AUD’s Center for Research, Innovation, and Design (CRID) and awarded Farah Ali’s project Second Best Cake along with the Best Cake Challenge & Complexity awards.

The innovative course thought at AUD has achieved a remarkable outreach and global dissemination. ArchEatable 2020 projects are exceeding 40,000 views and 30,000 reproductions on its YouTube and Instagram pages.

Future architect Farah Ali, utilized her creative and technical skills that she obtained from her ArchEatable course at AUD to design her delectable cake DI-VULGE in response to this year’s World Chocolate Masters prompt of “What will tomorrow taste, look and feel like?” The cake poetically whispers the story of a better tomorrow by illustrating the origins of chocolate and the community that bears both the fruits and labor of the sweet. Mentor and Professor Jose Carrillo describes Ali’s cake as, “Parametric design, art and chocolate came together to create one of the most advanced cake designs ever.”

“For ArchEatable 2020 edition I wanted the students to have the opportunity to collaborate side by side with their clients, well-recognized chefs, to turn a real commission into reality. Moreover, the DI-VULGE cake is the proposal of the Chocolate Academy Dubai for the World Chocolate Masters National Selection 2021,” said Professor Jose Carrillo.

The cake base in perspective is a forest terrain and in top view is a cacao pod cross-section demonstrating the promise of renewal and regeneration of tomorrow. This can also be reflected in the lush cacao forest that is represented by an array of delicate, vertical chocolate sticks. The sticks in turn also symbolize the various and diverse members that make up a community.  If one looks through the forest, the sticks will harmoniously align showing the message #TMRW, the symbol for the competition name #WCM_TMRW.

DI-VULGE will be competing in The World Chocolate Masters, the only worldwide competition, featuring a celebrated community of chefs competing to “uncover chocolate creativity at its finest.” A professional jury composed of leading experts in the culinary and gastronomy industry from 20 different countries will be assigned per country and the nation with the highest will be awarded National Chocolate Master and will represent his or her country during the World Finals in 2022. The competition attracts 10 million chocolate fans, professionals and market leaders every year creating a “truly unique experience viewed around the globe.”