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Nice :) Tomorrow, I am visiting a potential new home which has the original Frankfurt Kitchen architecture (not the original appliances), from the original architect (Ernst May). While the house is 90 years old, it has been well kept to the point that most people think it is quite new.
previously discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18013286
Great find. Since the OP is a new and interesting article, and Frankfurt kitchens (who had heard of them?) are not at high risk of being overcovered on HN, I think we'll not treat this post as a dupe.
Off-topic: I guess moderators learn about A LOT of stuff, simply by moderating. I guess that's a small perk for the job :)
Typical architect opinion on a room. An entire article about household kitchens without a single mention of what they actually do: cook food. Our kitchens have evolved with our foods. The 1950's taste for boiled whole vegetables and large roasts worked well in tiny kitchens. You didn't need much space for prep. The large and segmented cabinets organized everything out of sight because that made things look more clean…
Typical architect opinion on a room. An entire article about household kitchens without a single mention of what they actually do: cook food. Our kitchens have evolved with our foods. The 1950's taste for boiled whole vegetables and large roasts worked well in tiny kitchens. You didn't need much space for prep. The large and segmented cabinets organized everything out of sight because that made things look more clean…
The main problem I have with these integrated kitchens is once one piece starts to fail you end up replacing the whole thing or else making do until enough of it fails. It's like the distinction between an iMac and a traditional PC.
If a door fails, getting a new one is not hard. Exchanging the work surface is usually totally doable. if some sink falls apart this is a bit more problematic, but also not a huge problem. Exchanging a fridge or a stove? Easy, as long as you don't buy the wrong size.
Of all the spaces I lived in the places that had the most broken kitchens, were always those where each element was seperatly movable, because having your stuff firmly mounted and reducing the places where liquid and dirt can go greatly improves the lifetime of the thing.
This is a European perspective tho, Americans might have different integrated kitchens, I am not that familiar with the differences there.
Do people find that time spent in motion or moving between tasks is ever the determining factor of how quickly or effectively you can prepare a meal in the context of a home kitchen? Granted, I've rarely cooked for more than ~4 people, I've never stopped and thought "wow, if only the cupboard with x in it were a few feet closer to the stove, I could have cut three minutes off my prep work." It's unclear to me how Tay…
And it totally paid off. Investing a few days of thinking and planing to avoid something that might annoy you for years to come is totally worth it.
I usually interpret a "dream" kitchen like the one shown in the article as evidence that a person doesn't really like cooking. I just don't get how somebody can cook frequently and even semi-seriously and have the fridge, sink, and stove all two or three yards apart. I would think most people who dig cooking would take a Frankfurt kitchen with decent appliances over a huge, airy space with great appliances. My curren…
Not for me - I'm not a professional chef, but I love cooking, especially meals for family and friends. In doing that it usually means people congregate in the kitchen (which is fun), but would cause havoc if it were compact.
I'd love a kitchen like the "dream" one - a Wolf burner, double open fridge, island for prepping, and space for people to be there, rather than crammed off in a corner to make it slightly more efficient.
Diff'rent strokes I guess!
EDIT: also, the Frankfurt kitchen seems optimised for actually "cooking", over and above other kinds of food prep. I'd take a massive worksurface for mixing and forming, over being closer to the oven or sink.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitchen_Stories
> Swedish efficiency researchers come to Norway to study Norwegian men, in an effort to help optimize their use of their kitchens.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The main problem I have with these integrated kitchens is once one piece starts to fail you end up replacing the whole thing or else making do until enough of it fails. It's like the distinction between an iMac and a traditional PC.
Not sure, how it should fail tho. I have seen integrated kitchens that are double my age and are still doing well. If a door fails, getting a new one is not hard. Exchanging the work surface is usually totally doable. if some sink falls apart this is a bit more problematic, but also not a huge problem. Exchanging a fridge or a stove? Easy, as long as you don't buy the wrong size. Of all the spaces I lived in the plac…
Do people find that time spent in motion or moving between tasks is ever the determining factor of how quickly or effectively you can prepare a meal in the context of a home kitchen? Granted, I've rarely cooked for more than ~4 people, I've never stopped and thought "wow, if only the cupboard with x in it were a few feet closer to the stove, I could have cut three minutes off my prep work." It's unclear to me how Tay…
Do people find that time spent in motion or moving between tasks is ever the determining factor of how quickly or effectively you can prepare a meal in the context of a home kitchen? Granted, I've rarely cooked for more than ~4 people, I've never stopped and thought "wow, if only the cupboard with x in it were a few feet closer to the stove, I could have cut three minutes off my prep work." It's unclear to me how Tay…
If you are a designer (or have the mindset of one) you can spend a significant amount of time thinking about this. Both my girlfriend and I are rooted in design and we were thinking 3 days about how to order things in the kitchen, where to put the sink, the stove, the fridge, preperation areas, cuttlery, garbage, etc. We drew out the routes and movements for common tasks on each variant and iterated through it, till…