Kitchen Design Think Tank

designer's own words: name of design : catalyst design by : min woo lee + Sungmo Ahn + Eunsil Lee from korea Catalyst is a moving island functioning as a kitchen. Catalyst raises activities of a kitchen and a dining room - cooking, eating, drinking, talking, watching, and listening - in bedrooms, a living room and a garden. It attracts people and makes them react. Where Catalyst is set is the place a family comes together. Every space at home has possibility to be a family community space. We expect different events which the family asks in different spaces. This is role of the moving island, Catalyst. It does not occupy the space which it is located in. “Catalyst is a catalyst” as revives the relationship of people. “There is no Catalyst but people.” The transparent appearance conceals itself in reflecting and permeating where it is located. This transparent Catalyst informs a user what is contained and what a user wants to know. The surface of Catalyst expresses inform...

Creating a kitchen that can respond to the environment and it's users needs is the utimate goal for any designer.  This kitchen is designed to morph between two positions, stand-by and in-use!  This basic consideration allows the kitchen as we know it to become diluted and transform itself into an un-obtrusive backdrop to the living space.  The kitchen can be an artistic statement of function.

The surrounding architecture can be the most restrictive or enhancing part of any kitchen design and with many new kitchens being required to fit into a pre-built and existing space it is down to the skill of the kitchen designer to make the final kitchen concept sympathetic to the surrounding building making the design function well on a primary level and delivering striking aesthetics that will make the kitchen desirable and socially acceptable to the user and their guests. We must also remember that the kitchen is not always being used for preparing food and particularly in an open plan setting this functional furniture will become the very backdrop to our domestic lives. Kitchen designers must now consider holistic design giving thoughtful consideration to the mood of the room and how all the sensory effects of the kitchen can enhance the well being of the users.

A kitchen must do its primary job well but it must also have the aspirational qualities associated with owning a sports car. With more people spending a larger proportion of their disposable income on their dream kitchen it is fair to say that the kitchen can be a functional expression of wealth. A kitchen designed by a particular person or manufactured by a particular company can be seen as an investment and for some it can mean acceptance in social circles. In starting any design consideration must be given to who the end user will be and how the space will be used. This may involve meal preparation analysis as some people like to eat on the run while others like to prepare gastronomic master pieces for multiple guests. The demographics of the family unit also play a key part in the formation of a design as there may be multiple users of all ages using the kitchen at different times of the day to do all sorts of things.

The primary function of the kitchen stretches back to the dawn of humanity when primitive communities gathered around simple fires to consume the spoils of their hunt. Throughout the millennia the basic need to prepare and eat food encouraged the development of a cooking space we now call the kitchen. The development of the kitchen also had an impact on the evolutionary development of our species creating a sense of community or family and encouraging the development of social skills. The activities undertaken in the very first kitchens helped to cement the norms and values of the modern society we live in today. The modern designer must not forget the history of the kitchen or its primary function as delivering function is the basic ingredient to any successful design. There is no point in designing something beautiful if it doesn’t work very well. Thankfully the procedures and appliances used to prepare our meals have become much more sophisticated and our ingredients are now mo...

Kitchen design is becoming more and more scientific with many good designers adding sociology and architecture to their list of essential reading. These disciplines can assit our understanding of each individual client enabling the design to be perfectly tailored to their lifestyle. By having an appreciation of the surrounding architecture we can complement the room amplifying the creative direction the architect has expressed through their design.