the great kitchen redesign

Richard Roger's Mother's House © Richard Powers & © Tim Crocker

There are two interesting coinciding kitchen trends going on in the world today. First, fast food is not going away, but becoming an ever-increasingly intelligible giant. Second, American residential design is heavily leaning toward the open-concept kitchen layout. I find these two trends contradictory in a most intriguing way.



I have always been fascinated with the efficiency of a commercial kitchen, and which kitchen produces food faster than McDonalds? I believe I enjoy watching our happy meals and hamburgers get put together more than the food & the act of even going to a fast food restaurant itself. As an architect that has designed both commercial and residential kitchens, I have thought long and hard about the McDonald's kitchen.

McDonalds Kitchen photo courtesy of Bloomberg Business

Who would not want to get their food out on the table with the kind of mechanical efficiency like that of McDonalds? In fact, how many families have time to cook food and get it out on the table promptly? I know that I love cooking for my family and that the simplest recipes (with food already stocked in the house) that the dinner cooking process takes at least one hour.

So, of course on both a professional and on a personal, home-life level, I have wanted to design a kitchen that would be spectacular both in design aesthetics as well as in functionality. Unfortunately, there have been a great many famous architects that have done a very poor job of designing the kitchen. In particular, I noticed the kitchen that Richard Rogers designed for his mother's home. Horrible; just a small bit of counter and three sink basins with all lower cabinets. Apparently he was thinking that designing the kitchen was rather annoying.

McDonalds Kitchen photo courtesty of www.businessinsider.com

Having toured several new and recently renovated homes lately, I cannot help but notice the poorly designed kitchens. The homes themselves are gorgeous and address so many important family needs. However, the open concept kitchen is significantly lacking a consideration for functionality. Rarely are there enough cabinets to supplement the cook's needs. I try to imagine cooking in the kitchen and cannot get over how difficult I think it must be.

So, then perhaps these families are not cooking at home? At least not on any Jaques Pepin serious kind of level. They are probably taking advantage of the efficient commercial kitchens no doubt. I am afraid that I believe this to be a great tragedy and an exciting challenge both in the same degree. How can we design the residential kitchen so that it allows the space to be open-concept and so that it supports the needs of an efficient family kitchen at the same time? Think about it!