How important is social interaction in the kitchen?
What is very clear to me is that when you are prepping or cooking you should face into the room. Any kitchen that does not have that is, in my opinion, disobeying the core laws of human emotional needs. A lot of our work now is about sight lines, about getting people, through kitchen design, to face each other in the room. Not so much the washing up, because that, in a way, you want a little wall space to put dishwashers and cupboards. However the cooking part of the process should be done facing into the room. I always try to do that, to start when designing a kitchen, from the spatial point of view. So, start with the space and don’t think about the cabinets until you have some of the basic ideas right. The next most important thing I feel is access to gardens, some way if possible, or to access the outside. This can be done via a door, window or balcony for both view and natural light. Then you come back to make the cabinetry work around these several key elements of the space.
