Kitchen Design Think Tank

You can’t exactly call this kitchen warm and inviting, but it is brilliant!   This concrete installation exposes the empathy between kitchen design and art and displays a morbid self indulgence that engages the viewer, making you curious, and presenting you with a concept that you can’t initially classify!   Kitchen or Art? The designer Thomas Linssen of Studio Thol used a textile bag to manipulate the fluid nature of the concrete in order to create the definite contours of the design.   The overall affect is one of primitive industrial imperfection! Experimentation will develop the discipline of kitchen design and push the boundaries of expectation.   The Mogul approves!

They say that size isn’t everything but you can’t help but be impressed with the size of this little gem!   This is a virile display of functional beauty that embraces nature by using Bianco Perlino Marble to the maximum effect!   The linear nature of the design emphasises the natural beauty of the stone doors, profiles and end panels.   The matching worktop penetrates deeply across the man made smoothness presenting an un-nerving edge to the design, reminding the onlooker that this kitchen began its life by being violently removed from the earth! In this case bigger is certainly better!

A little while ago The Mogul introduced the idea of the contemporary classic kitchen, a hybrid design that straddles the contemporary/ traditional divide and appeases the tribal design conflict!   It will be this type of kitchen that will offer the closet contemporary’s the opportunity to indulge in “safe” kitchen fashion.   Hello Middle America! So what makes up this style?   The lines of the design will be from the contemporary designers drafting board; worktops will be slender and fused to the cabinetry.   There will be an asymmetrical approach to the overall concept and just like in this design by GED Cucine the handles and cornice will be removed.   However the actual door will no longer be smooth, buffed and polished, instead the doors display traditional profiled elements, bringing contemporary kitchen design back to the future.   And like it or not, this is the future. The Mogul thinks that this is a spectacular compromise!   Truly beaut...

Take the Bulthaup b3 system and sprinkle a little eclectic, functional animation and you will get “Shifting Concepts”.   This idea encourages individuals, designers, artists and architects to get involved in the design process and evolve what Bulthaup claim is the perfect product.   The Mogul imagines that this concept delivers the bespoke, made from scratch feeling to a modular based system, enhancing the experience for both users and designers and making the process of kitchen design more personal and introverted!   Top marks there! Bulthaup appear to dress the b3 in a way that transforms it into an art installation, adding an extra layer and allowing the concept to become un-architecturally defined.   Don’t underestimate Bulthaup, their kitchens are fantastic; but there really isn’t anything new here.   The Mogul and many other designers including Johnny Grey have been promoting the human element of kitchen design for years, encouraging an understanding of...

Ask anyone about kitchen design and they will describe a product that surrounds the user, enveloping them with functional capability and placing the gastronomic conductor in the centre of the orchestra pit.   This design contradicts this notion, shying away from the user.  It appears to press itself against the wall in an attempt to get away from the approaching danger, a dangerous human presence that will see this kitchen frisked and searched until it becomes barren and empty!  Used! However this design is extremely functional allowing the user to move through zones towards the cooking area.   This is a galley kitchen with a kink! The inside out format of this design mixed with back lit green glass and wood veneer gives it a real presence and allows it to dominate the architectural space.   The Mogul loves the contradictions within this design and the blatant desire to challenge conformity!  

Throughout the course of writing this blog The Mogul has uncovered many different kinds of Shape Shifting kitchens, all of which are progressive and all of which are aspiring to the ultimate objective; the creation of a versatile and individually adaptive functional space. Concepts give birth to trends and this Electrolux H20 kitchen introduces us to the possibility that in only a few short decades’ kitchens as we know them today will become social artistic artefacts!   The future kitchen consumer will demand flexibility and customisation and just like users of modern technology today will not accept anything which is dated.   Imagine getting hold of your new I-Pad 2 and finding that you need to load the App’s by cassette tape..   Not cool! This H20 kitchen uses Claytronics to create a responsive, organic reaction to the user and its environment through the use of programmable matter. Claytronics is an abstract future concept that combines nanoscale robotics and com...

Who said kitchen design wasn’t fashionable!   This little number which is manufactured by Dada has the Armani label attached!   In an attempt to look exclusive the wooden finish has been given a golden glow!   Nice kitchen but it looks as though Dada have kept their best work for themselves!   It’s all about the designer label!   But this example illustrates how important kitchen design has become and is going to be in the future!

The kitchen has become the backdrop to our home life, a reassuring companion that will imprint on our future memories.   What better way to give these memories a calming influence than to integrate a holistic powerhouse into the design. Aquariums have the ability to fascinate humans in an extremely therapeutic way projecting positive energy and allowing us to enter a primary meditative state.   The medical profession has found that patients suffering from mental health problems and trauma can be calmed; entering a hypnotic state of consciousness by simply gazing into an aquarium.   This design by Robert Timmons uses the aquarium to project colour and movement into the space.     The architecture becomes instantly animated with the viewer receiving a strong visual impact from the design.   You can almost forget that this space is defined by the term kitchen, it has become more than that, it is a space where you want to spend time, a space that ...

Good kitchen designers explore every possible avenue to ensure that the products they develop indulge the lifestyle and physical requirements of the user.    Every whim is now catered for with electrical opening support mechanisms being included as a standard feature in modern kitchens for horizontally moving elements like drawers. Automation is now more common in the vertical plane and this design by Team 7 was one of the pioneers of this idea.   Human beings interact with their environment based on their sensory capabilities and the spatial grammar of the kitchen and the architecture that surrounds it.   In other words, if you are tall you will see and use the environment in a different way than those people who live their life closer to the ground.   From a very practical point of view; if you like to bake and the worktop is too high you will not be able to get a proper purchase on the rolling pin when making pastry...very frustrating!   Having the a...

Lots of modern kitchen design trends in these images....test yourself....do you know what they are?  And NO...it’s not the taxidermy on the worktop. Great lifestyle images!

Functional self expressionism is spreading!   The kitchen is the new expressive media for the man...or woman on the street!   However, The Mogul is not a fan of the cleaning and cooking zones being positioned on opposite sides of an island...particularly on an island of this size!   There must be a good reason for this potential functional annoyance?   It might also be a good idea to have interchangeable door panels so that new artistic influences can be expressed without the need to invest in a brand new kitchen every few years.

Contemporary kitchen design can be described by using a certain type of language that might include phrases like handle less, linear, asymmetrical, minimal and high gloss!   From a purely aesthetical point of view however contemporary kitchen design can be seen as an artistic play with shapes, lines, light and architectural influence with each designer seeing different things and painting the picture in a different way. It is interesting that some of these kitchen artists are now beginning to soften their more risky Turner Prize entries by using more traditional oils and pastels!   High gloss, handle less door panels are now being replaced by more traditionally profiled doors making the look more appealing to some audiences like those considering the wider resale appeal required in America!   The lines are still contemporary, the look is still modern but the edges don’t cut as deep!   There is an inevitable shift happening!   The contemporary classic kitchen is ...

This kitchen presents itself as a futuristic culinary transformer, sitting dormant while awaiting engagement in the next efficiently executed gastronomic sortie.   The extraction system looms ominously above the shape shifting island connected to the dominant housing in the background like an extended pod from a mother ship; involving itself in the cooking experience!   There is something brilliantly menacing about this design that presents the viewer with an efficient and somewhat soulless vision of what kitchen design can be.   But this design is not a cold and heartless creature from science fiction; it is in-fact fantastically human!   This design displays all of the traits now found within our society; it is efficient, organized, functional and ruthlessly cool!   We are the masters of our own creations and in many ways kitchen design is becoming an inward exploration of who we are!