The Kitchen - Design Goals

I once heard a story about a chemistry student who had the opportunity to meet Nobel-prize winning Linus Pauling in a cab. He asked Mr. Pauling, "how were you able to solve so many chemical structures? how did you do it?" And Linus replied, "its easy... if you know what they are."

I feel similarly about architecture. I feel like the creativity flows once I know what the design is, or rather, what the goals of the design are. The deeper you dig, the more the design generates itself. Ideally, I would spend 99% of the time programming, and 1% designing.

The first stage is the design goals. Let's use a kitchen as an example-- specifically, I have my parent's kitchen in mind, which is used for a still-rearing family of four. These are in no particular order.

1. Make cooking as much (or more) a social activity as eating, helping to bring the family together.

2. Help facilitate sustainable goals such as

• Water conservation
• Reducing material waste
• Reducing energy use, both for cooking and for food transportation and processing.

3. Help promote a healthy eating, such as the reduction of processed goods and salty/fatty/sweet foods.

4. Make cooking a more comfortable, less stressful activity, by reducing:

• Stooping and reaching
• Clatter, beeps and alarms
• Heat
• Glare
• Running into other people while cooking
• Being distracted by other problems while cooking

5. Cultivate the love of food and its place in a balanced life

• Create places to showcase beautiful food, recipes, objects of food making, methods of food making

6. Make the activity of cooking a spontaneous aesthetic response, not a chore.

This is my starting point. The list is by no means complete, but its a place to start.

best,
Brett