:: Function and Movement
Function comes first.
Understanding function starts with careful study of your cooking needs, storage requirements and preferred ways of cooking. It means good ergonomics: the counter and shelf heights that suit your family, for example. It means tight, compact storage, with key things stored at the “point of first use”. It means a thoroughly studied layout, with very well organized work centers, which contain all the items and supplies which belong to that aspect of kitchen work. Usually there will be a central, primary work area, that has the key tools and ingredients, and is only a step from the stove and a step from the sink.
Good kitchen design comes from observing and thinking about movement: how people move comfortably and gracefully as they work in the kitchen. And how stuff – tools, foods, supplies, trash, compost – moves or is moved through the kitchen as food is prepared and as the cleanup is done. People move in different ways, and a kitchen design should reflect these differences.
Getting these things just right is the heart of good kitchen design. You could have the simplest cabinets, the most ordinary appliances, and basic laminate countertops, and if you get the layout and storage design right, you would have a great kitchen.
It’s also important to look at other needs: a cozy place to sit and read in the kitchen, a desk or message center in the kitchen, or a view of a pond or garden.
:: Circulation and Light
Many older kitchens are too dark. New windows, skylights, internal windows, and even removing the occasional wall can help make the kitchen brighter. Older kitchens also often have poor “circulation”, or traffic patterns. Traffic crosses the work area, the entry is awkward, or the kitchen is in the wrong relationship to the other spaces in the home, inside and out. Sometimes the kitchen is too isolated from other areas, or too much of a hallway to them. Fixing these problems is just as important as new cabinetry or appliances.
:: Kitchen research
Many years ago, Sam spent part of a winter studying the history of the kitchen, and the wonderful research that was done on kitchen design by the Gilbreths in the thirties, and later by researchers at Cornell University. This work underlies modern ergonomics. It’s about ways to observe how people work, how they move as they work, and how to put this knowledge to use in kitchen design, or any other design project.
Though this work was sponsored by cabinet and appliance companies, its results were largely ignored by them. But it has been the basis of Sam’s kitchen design work since he first encountered it. His book “The Motion-Minded Kitchen” describes this research.
:: Simplicity
We like simple kitchens. Many modern kitchens are bigger than needed, as if sheer acreage made a kitchen better. Often a compact kitchen, with everything very well organized and positioned, works better than a huge kitchen, simply because everything is to hand. When you need something, it’s right there. Most basic cooking tasks can be done in comfort with just one or two steps this way and that, and often without reaching high up, or stooping low to peer into dark base cabinets.
We like cabinetry which is visually simple. Many modern cabinets are cluttered with a lot of unnecessary detail. One or two fancy cabinets can be fun, but walls of identical ones can be a bit much. We go more for simple, relatively light, well-composed cabinets, hopefully located in a beautiful, light room, with a little wall space left over for a picture or two.