After reviewing the NKBA's “new” Kitchen Planning Guidelines, Codes and Standards, I am shocked - yet again - at the approach taken by the organization representing our industry’s top designers and educators.
I had looked forward to the new textbook (a training manual for becoming a Certified Kitchen Designer) because the NKBA has been touting the “task zone” approach as an advancement over the old kitchen triangle design philosophy.
Instead of finding anything new or innovative, or anything even attempting to connect the kitchen layout to its function of food preparation (as task zones are supposed to do) I found the same old kitchen triangle formula.
Multiple task zones aren’t really described as zones at all, but as points on multiple triangles.
Why am I enraged? Why am I taking the time to criticize an organization of which I am a member in good standing?
Simply because it’s time for a change.
In 1978, Ellen Cheever came out with Beyond the Basics: Advanced Kitchen Design.
On page 27 she wrote:
"Donald E. Silvers, a noted kitchen designer, questioned the continued usefulness of the work triangle in a professional speaking column in Home Magazine recently.
His concern was that the kitchen work triangle concept was a static one with an appliance located at each of the three fixed points.
A formation was created that could not be compressed or expanded to accommodate greater or lesser loads of foods or guests.
Mr. Silvers suggests, and many talented designers agree, that the work triangle concept should be expanded today to accommodate the changes taking place in the way homeowners use the kitchen."
Unfortunately, it goes on to suggest using two or more triangles as a solution to the dysfunction of a single triangle.
The Kitchen Triangle Formula is designed to take an industry newcomer and teach them to sell cabinetry.
It is not about function, not about cooking, not about creative and logical use of space.
Yet here we are, 60 years after the formula was invented, and this inadequate, incomplete philosophy is being promulgated by the NKBA as though it were new information.
It’s old, old information; it didn’t work then and it doesn’t work now.
Let me give you an example.
We would all agree that a core component of a kitchen is adequate storage.
You need to store dishes, equipment, food, spices, tools, possibly books—the list goes on and on, but these are the basics.
Kitchens have a combination of wall cabinets, base cabinets, and tall cabinets to fulfill this purpose (we’ll leave out walk-in-pantries for now).
Fresh food maybe stored on the counter or in the refrigerator.
How do you determine your needs?
How does your kitchen designer help you?
Well, I have my clients make a detailed inventory of what they own and use: everything from recyclables to fine china.
Then, based on what my clients own, and, how often they use it, we create a cabinetry plan that makes the best use of their space and put’s their most frequently used items at their fingertips.
Here is how the National Kitchen and Bath Association trains designers:
“Storage recommendations are based on shelf/drawer frontage, not just cabinet size:
1400 inches for a small kitchen (less than 150 square feet);
1700 inches for medium kitchen (151 to 350 square feet);
2000 inches for a large kitchen (greater than 350 square feet);
They continue on, stating “Wall storage needs peak at 360 inches of shelf/drawer frontage.
No more is needed in the large kitchen than in the medium sized kitchen.
Base and drawer storage needs increase as the kitchen size increases.”
I call attention to this not because these amounts are too much or too little.
It is the arbitrary nature of these blanket statements that I object to: they ignore the client: is she a baker, an entertainer, a mom?
They ignore the space: how many windows and doors are there? How much wall space?
They should be teaching designers how to evaluate a client’s inventory to determine storage needs, not giving them a mathematical formula.
Another objection I have is the continued characterization of a second sink as an “auxiliary” or luxury item.
While the guidelines separate food preparation and clean-up activities (as I did in my book, Kitchen Design with Cooking in Mind, first published in 1994) they suggest two sink stations only for larger kitchens or those serving multiple cooks.
The truth is, every kitchen, especially small ones, benefit from having two sink stations.
Two sink stations serve multiple users, not just those cooking.
They allow someone to cook while someone else cleans up. I won’t go into a complete discussion of the benefits—if you’d like more information you can read my book or the article Thinking Inside the Box, found in the My Articles page of this website.
Ultimately, you, the consumer, are the one who is hurt by a kitchen that doesn’t function, driving you to the nearest restaurant or frozen food aisle so that you don’t have to put up with an unpleasant, inconvenient environment.
Here it is, 60 years after the invention of the Triangle design concept, and with all of the talk about functional kitchens, design philosophy is years behind design trends.