Cheng Soo Kuan

MASTERCHEF JUNIOR ACADEMY is a center that provides hands-on cooking for children aged 8 to 13. It provides kids with positive, fun experiences with food, and encourages them to make healthy choices about nutrition and meal prep throughout childhood and beyond as well. The design will have the "seed to plate" approach where the children plant, cook, and eat food together which able to encourage children to grow herbs, vegetables, and used it in the production of food. Children can learn the kitchen basics such as handling food and preparation, cooking techniques, kitchen safety, reading recipes, and experiencing new food. Children are encouraged to explore their creativity in a fun way by doing gastronomic experiments and recipes.

The client for this project is the MASTERCHEF JUNIOR which is an American cooking competition TV show featured children from the ages of 8 to 13 to showcase their culinary skills and passion for food through the exciting contests in front of some chef and food critics including the world-renowned chef, Gordon Ramsay. However, they only provide competition facilities. Therefore, this design project is a new proposal for the MASTERCHEF JUNIOR to provide an educational facility for children.

The factor of designing the MASTERCHEF JUNIOR ACADEMY is because according to the research, Malaysian children are facing nutritional crises despite having enough to eat. Most of them are suffered from under-nutrition, obesity, and micronutrient deficiency as they didn’t meet the recommended intake of important nutrients. Eating healthy food helps children get the nutrients their bodies need to stay healthy, active, and strong. Therefore, it is important to start to adopt healthy eating habits from a young age can have a positive influence on kids’ dietary habits later in life.

The objective of this design is to allow children to engage in the positive and fun sensory experience with a variety of healthy foods, to increase knowledge, skills, and good practices related to food, nutrition, and health and most importantly to solve and create awareness of the nutritional crisis in Malaysia children.

The design concept of this project is developed from the amusement of cooking, specifically experiencing new flavors by mixing different ingredients. Cooking can be great fun and is an art full of creativity, mixing the imagination with a twist and seeing how different veggies, meat, and spices combined to give the gorgeous flavors. The feeling of satisfaction gained when seeing the end product naturally enhances amusement. The design element I use to express the concept of mixing, it is a spiral shape, which represents the movement of mixing the ingredients together.

The MASTERCHEF JUNIOR itself has certain design characteristics, such as black and brown accents, and also uses natural materials such as exposed bricks, rocks, and wood to create a warmth and rustic atmosphere in the space. Based on the design concept, I have mixed some vibrant and bright hues to create a whimsical space that attracts the children.