Danielle Bowling reports on new trends emerging in residential kitchens in 2010.
It seems those going through the very stressful task of building a new home or renovating an exist ing one are becoming more and more concerned with the kitchen and how it effectively runs as the engine room of the household.
The Housing Industry Association’s Kitchens and Bathrooms Report for 2009/10 predicted the value of kitchen and bathroom installations and renova tions will hit a record $12 billion by 2012. The value of kitchens on their own will rise to almost $7 billion by 2011/12. And despite evidence that detached houses might be declining in size, kitchens are getting bigger and bigger.
According to Sonia Simpfendorfer, interior design principal at Nexus Designs, today’s kitchens must be two things: stylish and sensible. “You have to have a great looking kitchen because it’s such a significant part of your life, and I think that Australians really do like to cook,” she says. “The idea of a kitchen that looks beautiful but doesn’t function is just far too frustrating for people.”
A modern kitchen is an efficient kitchen, both in terms of space and appliances. Juggling this with aesthetics is the primary concern for Simpfendorfer's clients, and certain kitchen essentials are increasingly being doubled as design elements.
“Island benches don’t seem to be going away at all. In fact they’re proba bly getting more important than the rest of the joinery around them and taking on more of a personality of their own, whereas before, an island bench was pretty much an extension of what the kitchen looked like,” she says. “Now, island benches are becoming almost like a piece of furniture in their own right.”
While structural elements like island benches can be effective in making a modern kitchen both workable and fashionable, for Simpfendorfer, a focus on appliances can make all the differ ence for a busy, working family.
Freezer drawers and multi-purpose appliances, for example, and sinks that convert into dishwashers are becoming increasingly popular. The Izona CoolDrawer is one such product that allows users to set the temperature to either freezer, chill, fridge, pantry or wine at the touch of a button. It also has variable internal compartment con figurations to suit certain food storage needs and helps to keep food fresher for longer.
According to Peter Russell, national marketing manager at Fisher & Paykel Australia, the CoolDrawer is expected to be one of the standout products for 2010. “Fisher & Paykel’s underbench DishDrawer and Izona CoolDrawer deliver both ergonomic benefits as well as design flexibility that allows the kitchen to be divided into zones — for preparation, storage, cleaning and enter taining. For example, a CoolDrawer can be located under the preparation bench and a second one could be located on the entertaining side of the benchtop with easily accessed drinks and snacks,” he says.
Other products that Russell expects will make a splash this year are Fisher & Paykel’s French Door Ice and Water fridge, the Izona CookSurface — a gas-in-glass cooktop with retractable burners — and the pyrolytic self-cleaning ovens.
The kitchen is arguably the room in the house where space optimisa tion is most important, and Lorraine Brigdale, design manager at Laminex, believes this is why drawers have replaced cupboards in most modern kitchens. Today’s kitchens, she says, will be made up almost completely of pot drawers, whereas 10 years ago, a kitchen would have comprised mainly of cupboards and doors with one or two drawers.
While matte, slightly textured fin ishes are becoming more popular, gloss is still the trend for today. People do, however, have the choice to personalise their surfaces by adding certain colours or patterns. “The gloss level of kitchen cabinets is a highly desirable trend and in essence, what’s been available up until now is gloss in solid colours and a few wood grain, but the tech nology has changed in that now there is a possibility of having a lot more pattern in the gloss finish,” Brigdale says.
For those who can afford it, essas tone, a quartz surface composed from around 95 per cent natural quartz, pigments and advanced polymer resin, is a popular option, Brigdale says, because it can have two design features that seem to be timeless: a gloss finish and square edges.
“We've recently added some linear patterns into it, which is a little bit unusual. It's a new direction which we believe trends are going in,” she says. “It’s a straight line that’s not a wood grain but that fits in with the horizontal feel. If you think about the shapes in a kitchen, the strong direction is horizontal, and that fits in with the practical direction of hav ing pot drawers.”
There will always be a very strong market for white kitchens, but there are still options for clients who want to add colour, while still playing it safe. Today’s ‘new neutrals’ are pure colours that have been toned down by having grey added to them. “It’s easier to put almost any colour together with something that’s been cut by grey, so when you want an accent colour, it’s much more subtle in its look even though it’s an accent, and there’s a harmony in the look of the kitchen,” Brigdale says.
Red is not as fashionable as it has been in recent years, while Brigdale says orange is in the “middle of its supremacy”. Simpfendorfer’s clients, however, often prefer more classical black and white combinations with some natural timber integrated into the design.
While clean lines and clutterfree kitchens are reigning supreme in households across Australia, the old ‘less is more’ theory does not apply as much today. People want more space, more technology and more convenience. Not to mention more admiring eyes.
