Refettorio Felix by Studioilse: A Community Kitchen Designed Around Dignity and Care
At Refettorio Felix in London, Studioilse brought the attention usually associated with a carefully furnished restaurant to a community dining hall. Completed in 2017 within St Cuthbert’s community centre, the project combined a kitchen, places to eat and a welcoming setting for people experiencing food poverty and social vulnerability. The interior gave physical form to a simple ambition: a meal should arrive with care, comfort and respect. [1] [2]
A room organised around welcome
Food for Soul, founded by Massimo Bottura and Lara Gilmore, connects the recovery of surplus food with social inclusion. Its account of the Refettorio model places hospitality and the quality of the environment alongside the meal itself. That relationship is especially relevant to this project. A dining room communicates through its arrangement before anyone has spoken: where people sit, how they are served and whether there is somewhere comfortable to pause all shape the encounter. [3]
Studioilse retained the generous character of the hall while introducing a more intimate layer of furnishings. Tom Mannion’s photographs show green walls, tall windows, plants and clusters of white paper lanterns suspended beneath the high ceiling. Tables occupy the centre, with circulation around them and furniture along the perimeter. The room remains recognisably communal, yet the smaller scale of its lights and individual tables brings attention back towards the people using it. [1]
At one end, a sofa and woven lounge chairs gather around a low table. This change of seating gives the hall another pace and a different bodily posture from dining. The photographic sequence also shows the space occupied for a shared meal, making the relationship between furniture and use particularly clear. Its warmth comes from repeated, ordinary provisions: a seat with a back, daylight, a place to put a cup and something living by the window. [1]
Contributions that become useful objects
Vitra’s project record identifies the Belleville chairs supplied for the scheme. The company describes responding to Crawford’s request for a donation by bringing forward an internal seating project so that chairs could reach the London Refettorio. Its account also identifies The Felix Project as the source of supermarket surplus used to prepare meals. These contributions connect the room’s design to the practical network required to operate it. [2]
Food for Soul highlights two further elements of the interior: the paper lanterns and a lamp made by artist Margit Wittig using old spoons. The latter gives the reuse of ordinary objects a visible presence. Its relevance is specific to the setting, where the potential of ingredients, materials and existing space is being reconsidered. Such details give visitors something to encounter beyond the immediate function of receiving food. [3]
The design’s significance lies in the way these different contributions are brought into a consistent environment. Donated furniture still requires placement; a large hall still needs places that feel approachable; a social mission still depends on everyday operational decisions. Interior design provides a means of connecting those scales, from the overall arrangement to the table setting.
Refettorio Felix offers a grounded example of that work. The photographs present a room prepared for company, and the project’s documented purpose explains why this matters. Its quality can be read in the invitation to sit, share a meal and remain part of the room’s life. Care is expressed through the things that make those actions possible.
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