Kitchen Design [Was Dishwasher]
From: Sharon Villines (sharonsharonvillines.com)
Date: Tue, 1 Oct 2002 08:39:00 -0600 (MDT)
on 10/1/2002 9:25 AM, Laura Fitch, A.I.A. at lfitch [at] krausfitch.com wrote:

> The comment below about walling off kitchens sounds like a universal
> recommendation not to wall them off.  I think the issue is very complex,
> and very much dependent on the size of the community.  I have never
> heard anyone at Pioneer Valley complain about the walling off of our
> kitchen.  In fact, we often have Common House uses that would conflict
> if we couldn't close the big openings into the kitchen.

One of the usual reasons for not walling off the kitchen is that it isolates
the cooks and cleaning uppers. I was an advocate of open kitchens before we
moved in and am  now convinced that we need a closed kitchen or partially
closed kitchen.

1. We rarely have only one person cooking or cleaning in the kitchen.
Usually there are three. Even if only one or two people are cooking or
cleaning, others are walking through and stopping to talk.

2. The people in an open kitchen are more inhibited when the dining room is
being used. Trying to cook when meetings or other gatherings are going on,
means they can't talk to each other. They spend time in wild gesturing to
communicate and this distracts listeners in the dining room. I've often
looked up to wonder if we should call 911.

3. Many of our people work late and in order to cook a meal, have to prepare
the night before. This means it is not impossible but constricting to use
the dining room for a large meeting. No one wants to complain about people
doing work while they are sitting around, but it is difficult for both
parties. And it is difficult to see the cooks coming in at 9:30 when the
meeting is over and start chopping veggies, knowing they will be chopping a
few hours and getting up at dawn.

I liked the kitchen at Blueberry Hill. It opens onto a smaller part of the
large dining room -- like opening onto a breakfast nook to the side of a
family room in a "normal" house. The rest of the kitchen is enclosed. I
don¹t' know whether this helps with noise.

Enclosing the kitchen also makes more room for shelves. Open shelves are so
much more convenient in a kitchen used by many people. We have some open
shelves but drawers and cabinets are labeled. Reading labels is not easy for
those of us who are vision challenged and may not be wearing our glasses in
order to set things out for a meal.

And enclosed kitchen would mean more space for open shelves and less
requirement that they be attractive.

SERVING COUNTERS: I also wish we had a serving counter that could serve on
both sides. We have all our plates and cups, etc., in rolling carts but a
rolling counter would be much more useful. It could be rolled out at the
beginning of a meal so people could file on both sides, and then rolled back
for seconds and latecomers.

It could also be used for other purposes in other rooms.

Sharon
-- 
Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org


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