Friendship Cabins, an architectural research project from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute using environmentally friendly, next-generation interlocking plastic bottles to create sustainable outdoor dining structures, received an inaugural Alfresco Award from Alfresco NYC – a coalition of community organizations that supports the Open Restaurants program in New York City.  

Designed by researchers at the Center for Architecture Science and Ecology (CASE) at Rensselaer in collaboration with the team at Friendship Products and installed at Peaches Kitchen & Bar in Brooklyn, the Cabins were recognized for their sustainable design and use of repurposed materials.

To see the Friendship Cabins in use, watch this video.

The restaurant industry, vital to the fabric of the communities of New York, was severely impacted by the COVID-19 public health guidelines that limited indoor dining. The Alfresco Awards were established this year to highlight the successful efforts by restaurants to design safe, sustainable, and affordable outdoor dining structures as part of the Open Restaurants program that offers restaurants the opportunity to expand their dining footprint by building legal outdoor seating options on the streets and sidewalks of all boroughs in New York City.

Design Trust for Public Space, Region Plan Association, and Tri-State Transportation Campaign are the primary collaborators at Alfresco NYC, a project funded by grants from The New York Community Trust.

Led by Josh Draper, a lecturer in the School of Architecture at Rensselaer, the next direction of research will be to use Friendship Cabins as a test bed for smart ventilation systems and sustainable power sources.