In her 1929 essay, A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf writes 'One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well', reasoning that the heart, body and brain are 'all mixed together, and not contained in separate compartments'. This notion of dining as experience that goes far beyond our stomachs and one that enriches all aspects of our being, has formed the basis of a burgeoning area of food and design research and experimentation.

Tom Wolfe is a leading food designer and artist who pushes the boundaries of gastronomy. Based in London and working all over the world, his work could be described as performance art, with our interaction with food as the central element. Wolfe's design serving 'apparatus' is often elaborate and playful, and has graced the catwalks of many high-end fashion shows.

As an industry 'Food Design' is still relatively new. Bombas & Parr, founded in 2007 by Sam Bompas and Harry Parr were one of the first teams to really bring this realm of design to the fore, with jelly as the 'cement' of many of their projects. Just over a decade on, the studio have published the report Bompas & Parr's Imminent Future of Food. In it they propose concepts including dinner parties with AI special guests (dead or alive!), food and drink designed to send us to sleep and GMOs engineered to enhance creativity.

At RB12 we were particularly excited about the 'Dine at mine' prediction. Proposed as a natural next-step for the 'access economy' – the model of hugely successful companies like Uber and Airbnb – the notion of providing your home as a venue for a unique dining experience offers a whole new dimension to interior design and curation.

Inspired? As well as kitchen and dining furniture and appliances, we represent a wide selection of homeware accessories brands (many of which are on display in our Shoreditch Design Space) which could help you get started! Why not start with collections by Minacciolo, KN Industrie and Rina Menardi for inspiration?

Read Bompas & Parr's Imminent Future of Food report in full here.