KITCHEN DESIGN
15 August 2008
“Neatness Is Next To Godliness”
I’ll bet you think that we have, by now, completely exhausted the subject of kitchen design. We’ve shown you new ones and cutting edge ones; I’ve even trotted out my own kitchen on my personal blog 
(Thinking About It)—mainly just to abuse a totally inadequate kitchen design, but, hey, that will be changing soon I hope. So, what else is there to say about kitchen design?
Well, as it turns out, lots and lots of concepts I’ve never for a moment thought of, and quite a few of these are, as it turns out, all boxed up and ready to go in one kitchen manufacturer. I don’t mind telling you about him because he’s in Germany, but, also because these people manufacture cabinets, which is quite a bit different from the art of making and installing custom cabinets. But I digress.
The manufacturers of the SieMatic S1 kitchen describe it as “breathtakingly linear and astonishingly direct.” And it really is. What they have done with this kitchen that I particula
rly find myself liking is this: they have designed every bit of it so that it functions in the best possible way. They’ve even gone so far as to consider entertainment for those who don’t find it enough to simply cook in a kitchen.
In keeping with the minimalist aesthetics that make up so much of Euro pean kitchen design these days, the drawers are mostly without handles, the better to emphasize the MaticMotion they use to open and close their drawers with a simple touch. And once those drawers are open, one sees drawer bottoms made of oak and rubber (they call it Grip Deck) that have been specially designed to prev
ent the drawer contents from sliding around.
The lighting system really deserves the title of “system” because there are three levels of lighting, ranging from work lighting to subtle mood lighting of various colors, which utilizes the flexibility of the LED lighting we’ve discussed at some length this week.
And someone like myself, who really NEEDS to have everything nice and neat and orderly, is going to find himself positively drooling at the way they’ve designed their cabinetry so that it en
ables one to do just that—put things where the Hell they belong! This kitchen has an abundance of storage space in the drawers—because of the way they’re configured—and they’ve even devised a kitchen island with a storage cranny that runs right down the middle with a flip-up lid to hide any mess. Oh! I have to sit down for a minute!
Finally, the storage cranny we’ve described ab
ove is actually what they call their Function Channel—so-called because it can be used in a number of different ways. Running down the center of an island, it’s a storage cranny; running along the rear of their base cabinet countertops, it takes on a number of different purposes. It can be space for kitchen utensils and ingredients, or it can be used for electronic accessories, such as a loading dock for a SmartPhone or a MP3 Player. You can even integrate a hi-fi and a flat screen TV. So now, if you’re a novice cook, you can tune in cooking shows in the kitchen and learn while you burn!
Joseph
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