JULIANA
NEWMAN

PROFILE


Spatial designer with a background in production and event design.
Experienced in translating conceptual direction into clear, buildable spatial plans across event, experiential, and interior environments.


CONTACT
Work Samples

Concept Development

THE MENU
CV




Education
University of California, Los Angeles
MFA, Scenic & Production Design
2019-2022

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
BA, Anthropology & Art History
2012-2016
Employment Freelance
Spatial planning & technical design
2025-

Event Eleven
Spatial/Project Designer
2022-2025

Production Design
Short films & Independent Projects
2022-

Film & TV Art Departments
Art Assistant
2016-2019




















THE MENU

UCLA / PRODUCTION DESIGN THESIS / 2022 
An independent production design developed from the screenplay prior to the film’s 2022 release.



CONCEPT The Menu imagines an exclusive restaurant as a study in control: a seductive environment that gradually reveals itself as something more rigid and predetermined. Architecture guides guests through a prescribed sequence of spaces, creating the illusion of choice while quietly removing it. Warm, elemental materials ground the restaurant in its remote natural setting while introducing a sense of unease.



PERFORMANCE The restaurant was conceived as a performance space, with a proscenium-like threshold separating the kitchen from the dining room. Operable panels control views into the kitchen, allowing the space to shift between concealment and spectacle. The kitchen becomes a stage and the preparation of each course a choreographed act, positioning guests as both diners and audience.  


SMOKEHOUSE-EXTERIOR


BUNKHOUSE-INTERIOR



OBSERVATION Living and working spaces continue the same logic of controlled visibility. Framed openings position occupants alternately as observer and subject, extending the relationship between audience and performance beyond the restaurant.

CHEF’S SECRET ROOM-INTERIOR






SPECTACLE/VALUE

Spectatorship and prescribed value—how context, exclusivity, and collective belief determine what we perceive as desirable. These ideas informed the restaurant as both dining room and stage. CONTROL/INNER WORLD

Chef’s pursuit of perfection is explored through control, repetition, and the tension between natural systems and imposed order. Fibonacci geometry and recursive forms became a way of visualizing his inner world.

COSTUME DESIGN Each guest was designed as a heightened version of themselves, using dress to reveal their relationship to the restaurant and its rituals—from conformity and ceremony to deliberate outsider status.



Select renderings were developed from my original 3D models and compositions, with AI-assisted refinement to lighting, atmosphere, material detail, and figures.