Dining Table Design

What’s the neuroscience of effective tablescaping?  There are so many scents and textures linked to end-of-season meals, ones that are a given and not negotiable (for example, in the US even though no one ever eats the fruitcake it is often on hand), that only a few of the experiences that people will experience as they eat are up for modification—but here are some ideas about how to develop holiday dining experiences (holiday meals are often not big on healthy eating, but if you want to design for that, read this article.) LINK Science shows that:

• People are indeed more likely to participate in a conversation when there is no clear leader, in other words when there is no one sitting at one of the short ends of a rectangular table.Your kindergarten teacher was correct in promoting circular sitting.  Round tables that seat the same number of people as a rectangular one are much larger and can be hard to fit into many dining areas—so people often go with rectangular when they’d like to be circular.  A solution: remove the chairs from the short sides of rectangular tables.
• People interact with those they can see, so size table decorations accordingly.
• People are most likely to speak to, and form relationships with, people who are sitting at 90 degrees from them, as they are when seated across the corner from each other at a rectangular table.If you’re acting as a holiday Cupid, develop the seating plan accordingly.
• All chairs need to have legs that are the same length because some people sitting on much taller seats and others on shorter ones will distort conversations.When we’re looking up at someone, because say we’re sitting in a typical desk chair and they’re seated on a bar stool, the person further from the ground will be perceived as more competent and skilled—which influences the impact of what they have to say—while the reverse is true for those sitting on seats closer to the floor.  It’s as if one group is seen as adult and the other as childlike.
• People like control of their environment always (as discussed here, for instance) so seating people at benches or lined up in chairs in front of a wall, can be a problem if all will need to get up for one person to do so.
• It’s great when a table is large enough so that from the nose of one guest to the nose of the next is 3 to 4 feet (the exact distance depends on culture and how well people know each other)—that cuts down on stress-inducing personal space invasions.
• And, of course, all of the principles of biophilic design, discussed here, are relevant when choosing table clothes (fractals!, etc.), centrepieces (foliage!, for instance), you name it. And never eliminate that centre table adornment—even the most social of us occasionally needs to take a break from eye contact with our colleagues and none are more graceful than a quick swing of the eyes to whatever is adorning the centre of a table.