Rule 1: The Work Triangle
The “Work Triangle” – the triangle made by the stove, the sink and the refrigerator – should be compact enough that it allows convenient and effective circulation for the chef, but generous enough that two people working in the kitchen aren’t bumping into one another.
Rule 2: Make it social and functional
The kitchen is the heart of the home, a space people naturally gravitate to. With this in mind, gathering and entertaining areas in the kitchen should be independent of the Work Triangle so that guests can nibble on appetisers, enjoy a drink, and watch the chef without getting in the way of the cooking.
Rule 3: Think about every door and how you’ll use them
Architectural drawings should include the geometry of appliance doors. This typically includes the swing of the refrigerator door(s), the oven and dishwasher in their open positions, and any other key operations like pull-out rubbish bins. While these operations will most likely overlap in some areas, it’s important to control which ones overlap. For instance, the oven door and dishwasher door can have overlapping operations as the two are typically in use at different times.
Rule 4: Smooth clean-up after a meal
The sink, rubbish bin and dishwasher have an important linear relationship. The design of a kitchen should take the sequence of meal clean-up into consideration. Most households clear, rinse and place dishes into the dishwasher in that order. Subsequently, the kitchen design should locate the bin, sink and dishwasher in a linear order with the bin closest to the eating area.
Rule 5: Easy unpacking of groceries
Kitchen ergonomics should address more than just cooking. How you enter your home and unload groceries is an important, and often overlooked, design consideration. Locating the refrigerator and pantry near the entry of the kitchen (and preferably near some countertop) makes a kitchen work much more smoothly in general.
This is an edited version of an article that originally appeared on The Build Blog.
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