The Technology and Design Blend

August 21, 2023

As open kitchen and living room spaces come inextricably close, fine design and exacting technology clearly attain top focus.

A recent story on the design process by an expert puts it across so succinctly. It reasons that ‘design is considered as a practice that is concerned with how things work and how they are controlled. The underlying element that distinguishes a superior product over the ordinary lies in the nature of the interaction between people and the technology the product represents.’

Expanding on the same idea it goes on to state that in more concrete terms, design concerns itself with ‘how something can best be created to enforce a predetermined use case’. For this, it takes the everyday experience of a tube of toothpaste. Everyday article’s design is so intuitive that even a baby can squeeze toothpaste on a toothbrush. An exceptional design of the tube may, however, come with a slider at the end to extract its last drop.

Thus, we may see how design, design thinking, and designers impact the world around us. In the modern kitchen, the everyday act of cooking becomes special, easy and seamless, if the design goes beyond the usual. It turns even easy, unique and truly empathetic to the consumer if they are in sync.

Trends come and go but the essential features do not waver. From the days when laminates were arriving on the stage, the surface has been the focus of attention. Along with it, as open kitchens expose everything, efficiencies and design have to be in concert and neither of the two could be seen to be any less or wanting from the other.

This is exemplified in how not just the look of wood but the entire kitchen aspects fit in with technology, look, and convenience. In this, the blending design of hoods and cooking systems plays a vital part.

As open kitchens expose everything, efficiencies and design have to be in concert and neither of the two could be seen to be any less or wanting from the other. Photo Courtesy: Aran Cucine

Elegance of Wood

There is an evergreen tendency to get the wooden kitchen look. A number of new products show how in the shades of its essences, the elegance of wood moves away from tradition to meet contemporaneity. In their LAB13 line, Aran Cucine has created a new composition that highlights the return of wood. It results in the scenic immediacy of the door in natural American Walnut chosen for base cabinets – with black aluminium groove – and for tall units – equipped with push and pull openings.

Grooves, vertical and regular, obtained from the slat woodworking, offer dynamism and rhythm to the apparently linear distribution of the product. The clear and simple design plays with different heights that give movement to the cooking and washing areas. This incorporates the kitchen sink that, with the multifunctional equipped tray, approaches a workstation tailored idea built to facilitate daily activities. The Rigoletto door is characterised by the combinations of different materials: the Magellan stoneware top expands in full length and height on the washing area wall, not only as a backrest but creating a real mural.

A touch of contemporary chromatism is embodied by the wall cabinets, lacquered in metallic liquid lead, designed with a flap opening system to organise kitchen utensils or useful ingredients. A linear disposition continues over the cooking area with a wall system, always characterised by the presence of the Rigoletto door, ready to give space to the oven and microwave, both recessed, to have – especially during preparing and cooking – all the necessary at the user’s fingertips.

In kitchens that are built to be paraded as a trophy, as most kitchens open to living room spaces essentially are, such a look makes a huge difference. Photo Courtesy: Aran Cucine

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Blending the Open Kitchen and Living Space

The strong character of this design, in its modernity, also invades the living area. The open kitchen was always a part of the living area during any age. The designers’ challenge was to blend it seamlessly with the décor without making a jarring effect on living room sensitivities. Dividing the cooking area, the washing or cleaning zone from the living area is almost an art since the designer has to incorporate all essential activities and processes without creating hiccups in design. In open kitchens, therefore, there is something like a telescoping of function and style as well.

As can be seen, the bookcase becomes a perfect furnishing element for the walls. Thought as a room divider, it has been designed to be ceiling mounted, achieving a maximum height of three meters. Equipped with multiple shelves depending on personal needs, it can also accommodate natural ash wood trays or, at will, become a containing structure with extra drawers and baskets in stained or lacquered open pore ash wood.

This look coordinates furnishing in the kitchen and living area. The wood comes back with the Rigoletto Plus door joined by a side wall system in matt White PET. This design of LAB13 is an example of a balanced solution to the need for simplicity and style in interiors that declares the return of wood, essential to create furnishing projects more and more contemporary.

Between Geometric Perfection and Extraordinary Functionality

Extractor hoods and cooking systems are now characterised by technological innovation, design and quality. Both the extractor and the cooking system account for a major lift to the kitchen’s class and quality. In kitchens that are built to be paraded as a trophy, as most kitchens open to living room spaces essentially are, such a look makes a huge difference.

How a modern, geometric and consistent design can define style in integrated cooking systems can be observed in Zero, a new entry in Falmec's collection. Photo Courtesy: Falmec