Creating an open plan 3: Designing a kitchen in an open plan

Here is our new shell:

As I progress in my interior designer career, I realise that I love designing kitchen. This might be linked to my background as a French person (being French means a culture around good food and eating) as a scientist (a laboratory is very much like a kitchen) and to the fact that in my childhood the kitchen was the most important room of the house where everything was happening. So I am always delighted when asked to design a new kitchen.

It is always exciting to design a kitchen for a big new opened space. It is time to imagine where and how a kitchen will become this so important place, and be a functional space at the same time. Yes, a kitchen is for social gathering, and need to be functional.

In this case there were many different possibilities for the new kitchen and a challenge to propose the best one (and I love this sort of challenge!!!). The client was quite surprise but understood quickly that the kitchen had to change radically and be re-positioned in what was the un-used office room. The dining area could then be fully used as a dining area and host a big dining table and what was the kitchen would become the place to relax and chill out, with a sofa, a library and a TV.

With this new design this bigger room has now three functions, a cooking place where you can also entertain with no shame, a dining area and a library/snug area. What an improvement!

Many things can be said about designing a kitchen space; to be functional the space has to follow certain rules, including the golden triangle so that you don’t have to walk kilometres while preparing food. We have included an island in this kitchen, to provide a bigger work space and a link to the dining area. The island is also used as a breakfast bar, and provides extra storage.

A good way to define each area in such an open plan space can be by the use of colours, rugs, specific lighting...

Emmanuelle Lemoine