Quality compact kitchens Designs on the kitchen
What’s cooking in kitchen design? Katie Newton highlights the latest trends from this year’s EuroCucina.
When it comes to kitchen design, Europe is the hub. And the biggest event in the European kitchen design calender is EuroCucina FTK: Technology for the Kitchen, a trade show where the brightest minds in the industry show their latest innovations.
Simone Stephens, senior industrial designer at Fisher & Paykel, attended this year for the first time in a decade.
‘‘Rather than trends, there was an evolution or continuation of ideas as EuroCucina this year,’’ she says.
‘‘There was a focus on precision and craftsmanship and a refinement of proportions and materiality.’’
Here’s what’s coming our way: Stephens was impressed by the quality of the compact kitchens on display. ‘‘There were stunning examples of high quality small kitchens,’’ she says. ‘‘When you think about it, there are multi-million-dollar apartments in New York where there’s no shortage of money but there’s a shortage of space.’’
She cites Japanese kitchen manufacturer Sanwa as a good example, which showed a collection of modular units titled ‘The Impact of Compact.’ Produced in collaboration with top European kitchen designers, the innovative designs included a full kitchen tucked into a cupboard no bigger than a wardrobe and another that folded out from underneath a desk.
Natural materials
Stark white kitchens are well and truly over, replaced with those in dark and grainy timber, copper, brass, marble and stone. Poliform showed their new solid bog oak finish, obtained from sub-fossilised trunks submerged for thousands of years in riverbeds and marshes for thousands of years.
Chris Arnold, sales manager at Kitchen Mania, noted that texture was everywhere.
‘‘From cabinet fronts, bench tops to wall panelling the Europeans love their texture.’’
Open shelving
Arnold says one of his personal favourite trends from the show was the black metal framed open shelving. ‘‘It was everywhere and is easy to manufacture,’’ he says. ‘‘It’s versatile and is a great way to display herbs, cook books and other personal items that soften the kitchen.’’
Stephens says much of it was like living room shelving, incorporating display cases that were luxurious in an understated way.
Suspended shelving was also popular, utilising space above kitchen islands and work areas and giving an industrial vibe.
Covert kitchens
Stephens noticed that kitchens