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Introduction
A kitchen plan design is central to designer house plans. It's the spiritual hearth of the home, the ultimate gathering place, the source of physical nourishment, a source of fundamental satisfaction. Before The Architect house designers plan kitchens to a point - physical relationship of the parts to each other and abutters, work flow, individualized attention to owners wants and needs. In our decades of experience, most kitchens plans we've observed fail one or more of the kitchen plan design guidelines to follow, dedicating them for all their time as unsafe, nondurable, inconvenient, or some combination.
Kitchen Plan Design Guidelines
- A kitchen plan work triangle
- shall point from 1 linear foot interior to the centerlines or handles of all 3 components – stovetop, refrigerator, primary sink
- shall not intersect an active travel pattern
Comment: Such intersection, in this designer's opinion, is the most common failure in triangle layout, certainly inconvenient and, potentially, tragic.
Comment: A kitchen plan triangles' place is to order the relationship of major activity centers so the cook doesn’t do more walking than cooking while doing both safely, conveniently. Indeed, the primary path to a good kitchen plan, in the author's opinion, is to carefully layout out the natural progression of work flow, respecting triangulation distances between proximate activity centers. Nevertheless, however one arranges work centers and the paths between them, thou shalt never obstruct that path with an active travel pattern or anything else. Not ever. Got it?
Comment: Natural progression? Ideally . . . . .
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Food and dry goods supply
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To long-, intermediate-, and short-term storage including cold hold
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To food prep
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To cooking
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To staging including warm hold
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To presentation
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To return
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To recycling
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To cleanup
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To ware storage
. . . . . without crossing paths, especially paths one up and one down from wherever you are in the food consumption cycle
Comment: The AG knows 2 things about this kitchen plan standard as stated.
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Other standards don’t give away that foot forward as does this one, and the author asks, “Then where do you stand in front of your kitchen appliances?" "In what lines, or vectors, do you most commonly travel?"
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If you don’t follow these rules, especially in regard to unobstructed pathing through the triangle, you’re in for a lot of inconvenience and safety troubles both short-term and long-term.
Comment: Make it a standard procedure to inquire early-on about intentions regarding appliances: size of refrigerator; more than one refrigerator; a separate freezer; more than one or two ovens or more; a dishwasher or two or more; a wine cooler; etc. So much depends on lifestyle: formal party-givers; informal party givers; in-kitchen adult bar; in-kitchen children's bar; avid baker in the family; pizza-making lovers; kosher; exotic cuisine aficionados; hunters; canners; caterer-bound; physical challenge; appliance manufacturer and model preferences, etc.
Comment: Recently we’ve determined that the choice between high-end kitchen products by maker and model should be engaged with closes scrutiny and healthy skepticism wherein every reasonable effort should be made to determine comparability.
Our own findings in regard to comparability are that for thorough-going results:
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The burden of discernment is on you, given the seemingly institutionalized, public presentation of largely incomparable data;
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The need to engage one of more high-end kitchen appliance professionals who can work with you across makes and models in support of your efforts to level the playing field, notably, among others, in the matter of durability, repairability, special or otherwise distinctive features;
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No one maker holds the market across high-end products for the kitchen in this custom house designer's opinion;
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Certain makers offer substantively better product – one product at a time, which seems to lead increasingly to several makers’ better wares showing up in high-end kitchens, e.g., a certain maker's combination range, another's two-drawer dishwasher, etc.
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Kitchen cabinet frontage math is, in the author's opinion, directive and adaptable.
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The National Kitchen and Bath Association offers 40 keys in their “Guide to Standard Kitchen Planning Dimensions" at http://www.superkitchens.com -
Which guidelines Before The Architect use often, and note herewith particularly two sets of the NKBA’s metrics; namely, that in kitchens under 150 square feet, wall cabinet frontage should be 144 linear inches and base cabs should be 156 linear inches; and that, in kitchens from 150 square feet up, wall cabinet frontage should be 186 linear inches and base cabs at 192 linear inches
- it's ok to proportion frontage to surface area
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from base cabinet frontage, exclude rangetop space along with sink, dishwasher, under-counter refrigerator/freezer, under-counter oven, trash compactor, and the like
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excludes from wall cabinet frontage sink space, range exhaust hood, high-hung oven, and the like
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pantry space gets 1 x width for allocation to wall cabinet frontage and 2 x width for base cabinet frontage (the latter largesse arising from a pantry’s capacity for storage at otherwise bare space from countertop to wall cabinet bottom of face)
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if ever there’s a shortfall in wall cabinet space after toting up considerable frontage and it's not enough, it is OK o sum base and wall cabinet frontage targets and actuals, thereby granting favor to base cabinet frontage to makeup breakages to individual metrics
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folks, especially with age, are apt to more easily lean and bend a little than stretch
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folks, most especially with age, should have a steadily decreasing obligation to acquire wall cabinet-contained items by standing on a chair seat or step ladder or the like
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base cabinet storage - including pull-out walls and similar - appears to be more adaptable and more wide-ranging in layout options in the open market than wall cabinet alternative arrangements of interior space
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A kitchen sink – prep or cleanup –
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