Snaidero’s Compact BOARD Kitchen Design
1 May 2012
“The Quiet Life”
I was once asked why I write so often about minimalist kitchen designs from Europe. The answer is simple. Wow!
Take the company that prompted the lead for this blog, Snaidero. I have probably written some eight or ten blogs on them over the last four years and will surely write another eight or ten. The reason is that these people have put together some of the most innovative designs that absolutely ever were. And rather than simply rest on their laurels after an absolutely dynamite kitchen design or two, they continue to push the envelope, constantly rethinking the entire purpose of that room.
Basically, a new kitchen design should have three things: functionality, innovation, and beauty. Beauty, in some regards, is odd man out simply because no two of us agree entirely as to what it is, but even so, we want our kitchen to be beautiful. Personally, given my love of a clean, uncluttered environment, the latest offering from Snaidero is beauty personified. The other essential is for my kitchen to be as functional as possible. Note I have said nothing at all about size.
The thing with kitchens is that not everyone needs the same amount of space. We tend to think of a fantasy kitchen as one of those that runs to six hundred square feet or so, but that is has never been a fantasy that has found any favor with me. What I most want to have is a kitchen that occupies the space it actually needs, which in our case, is not a whole heck of a lot. We’re a childless couple that lives, well, minimally! During the week it’s soup for the most part; we do cook on the weekends, but it is simple fare. Well, that’s us, right? Yes, and it’s a lot of other people too, even those who do have children. There’s school and any number of afterschool activities (the better to get them admitted to a prestigious college) and parents who quite often both work at demanding jobs. It doesn’t leave much time or energy for one of those fantasy kitchens. Well, maybe it does, but more and more these days, people are thinking less space, more function when they fantasize about a new kitchen. Enter Snaidero.
One of the Press Releases Snaidero put out to introduce their new BOARD kitchen by Italian designer Pietro Arosio is entitled “Living in the Present,” which is really what this kitchen is designed to do, to answer the needs of people living in the here and now. This is a kitchen that easily slips into just a little bit of space at one end of a Great Room (kitchen, dining room, and living room), which is a concept whose time has most definitely come. Why in the world wall off a large portion of one’s home and dedicate it to meal preparation in this day and age? Face it, none but gourmets actually spend any appreciable amount of time with food preparation these days.
And even those who do make something of a fetish of food preparation really do not need anywhere near the room that was required in days of yore. A little bit of counter, a stovetop, an oven, a sink, and a refrigerator/freezer pretty much does it. What Mr. Arosio has done with the BOARD is really pretty close to genius. He has reduced a kitchen to its essentials, but he absolutely has not scrimped on those essentials. In fact this kitchen is so well laid out that it actually has two workstations that can be used simultaneously. In a sense, it is a two-part kitchen: the wall unit that contains oven, refrigeration, and storage; a projecting unit for food preparation. The block which protrudes from the wall is made of Corian, the better to softly blend into the surrounding environment, and it comes in two sizes: 35 1/2 inches (which has a food preparation area and wooden snack bar) and 47 inches (with an innovative dynamic cutting Board system). It’s an incredibly versatile structure that comes with six built-in basin-like receptacles that are put to a number of uses, including a sink. More than that, they can be covered with slide-in chopping blocks to double as work surfaces, whenever they are needed for that purpose.
What you end up with is something compact, something with clean lines, something that quietly does a kitchen’s job in these changing times and needs. They’ve even designed a panel which can be regulated to light things up when one is cooking and dim it down when one wants the ambience of a quiet evening and a glass of wine.
Joseph
No comments yet
Leave a Reply