Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: open kitchens

[Berrins (Berrins]

At Pathways we have a partially open kitchen- basically, it's one large 
pass-through and one smaller one.  We often felt when designing the Common 
House that we would need movable covers for the pass-throughs to close the 
kitchen off from the dining room, but noise isn't a problem, even with the 
dishwasher on and the huge vent fan over the stove running (much louder than 
the dishwasher).  Not one person has suggested we need to put those covers 
on.  Some of the noise is likely absorbed by the sound-proofing tiles on the 
great room ceiling.

For effiency, Rob's concept of the flow of dishes is spot-on.  Also consider 
the flow of food when prepping and cooking; refrigerators next to sinks, next 
to cutting and prep surfaces, next to cooking areas.  Anything you can do to 
keep folks from bumping into each other helps.  If you have any present or 
former professional cooks, have them design your kitchen.  We had three 
former cooks (and one person who likes to cook a lot) design our kitchen and 
it works great.  It's a great opportunity for the former cooks to correct all 
those little and large issues they had with their old workplaces, not to 
mention that they will likely be doing a lot of cooking in the new one, so 
they want it to be as perfect as possible.

Roger
Pathways Cohousing
Northampton, MA
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