d76 KITCHENS


The Shape of Kitchens to Come


AS CONSUMERS’ MEALTIME ROUTINES EVOLVE, HOW WILL KITCHEN DESIGN CHANGE IN AN ONLINE WORLD, WONDERS GRAHAME MORRISON?


M


MAR 2015


AUG 2019


ention ‘online’ when you are talking about


kitchen design and there is a pretty good chance the person you are


talking to will either think of one of the online planning tools springing up on a growing number of websites or of WiFi-linked cooking appliances.


Less attention has been paid so far on how the online world is going to change the function of the kitchen. As architect Louis Henry Sullivan – the father of the skyscraper – once remarked, ‘form follows function’, so if the way kitchens are used in the future changes, so will the form or design of the kitchen change as well.


It was ever thus… I’m old enough to remember advertisements with ‘OXO Katie’ emerging from ‘her’ kitchen with a delicious gravy-smothered meal for her adoring husband Philip


designer kitchen & bathroom designerkbmag.co.uk


and their two perfect children. Philip’s sole contribution to the feast was to help Katie load the dishes after the meal into ‘her’ dishwasher.


Fast forward to today and so much has changed. The kitchen space is now frequently found as part of the whole living space rather than a dedicated room of its own. The dining room has all but vanished and the once essential kitchen table is today frequently replaced with a dropped down working surface area. This in itself is ironic, as the standalone kitchen table, beloved of many an Enid Blyton myth, frequently doubled as a food prep area.


And talking of food, this too has changed for many households. Even the Sunday lunch, where the whole family gathered to enjoy a ‘roast beef and all the trimmings’ belt-buster of a meal is a lot less frequent. And in the week, it is not unknown for a family of four to have individual meals at individual times.


There is much talk about ‘The Internet of Things’ at present, and the networked kitchen is already upon us. Okay, in some of the demos at exhibitions the technology is a little glitchy, but it is getting there. According to a recent report 45% of German consumers want a networked kitchen. And in the world of kitchen design and features, what German consumers want, we all will start to love sooner or later.


However, The Internet of Things has little impact on future kitchen design in itself as it is mostly about the control of appliances, we are already familiar with. Those barcode-enabled refrigerators that can plan a meal based on its contents and their use-by dates and then set the oven at the correct temperature to cook the meal, use regular sized ovens and refrigerators. Ovens with built-in menus and cooking instructions take up the same amount of wall space as a basic fan oven. But what is going to stir things up is the dramatic growth in ready meal services.


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