All About the Future of Life.Work.Leisure.

the kitchen ... The Kitchen ... THE KITCHEN!????

The Kitchen has evolved over the past few years and with little fanfare.

?For decades the Kitchen has been the heart of the home. It alone was responsible for ‘opening up’ the ground floor of most new houses and caused many existing homes to be altered to achieve the same result.

?The Kitchen didn’t so much as merge with the dining room & lounge, it acquired them! Creating something new that we’ve never really managed to ‘name’. A large space in which family and friends could spend time together, whilst concentrating on different activities. Someone cooked, whilst someone else worked as others watched TV; conversation now able to involve everyone without dividing walls isolating individuals or groups. Some headlines & experts have recently suggested that the death of open plan living is upon us. They say that walls are needed again to facilitate more family members being at home more of the time.

?The reality is quite different: having spent more time at home during the past few years ‘family life’ has been newly appreciated by people of all ages, a survey of the UK’s under 25’s back in 2020, found that 73% of them wanted the ‘family dinner’ to continue to be a part of their lives after the lockdown. Spending time together & the family meal has been re-discovered. The kitchen has quietly, unobtrusively, been at the centre of this emerging return to the past. It all seems very ‘now’ but in fact, many have re-found the family life of their memories and the young now appreciate more about family life, being together and shared experiences with parents, siblings and relatives.

Flexibility. Not the end of open plan. Flexibility to be able to temporarily create a variety of different spaces for individual activity and focus. If not temporary. Then open allowing connection through visibility and without enclosure.??

Since the enforced lockdowns of 2020, people across the world have spent more time at home and much more time in the space that the Kitchen acquired and dominates. Kitchens of every size, style and equipment level are being used by new cooks, new bakers, upskilled chefs and bakers; some are now enjoyed by highly skilled home chefs. The level to which a home-kitchen can now be equipped and the significantly increased use of kitchens by the many more enthusiasts of home cooking and family meals, can only add to the uncertainty for the future the restaurant sector.

?The biggest innovation in the development of The Kitchen is technology. The developments and advances in technology have enabled more people to find joy, ease, time and ability to prepare, cook & share meals. People that without this innovation may perhaps have continued to believe they just ‘couldn’t’.

Home technology can now perform the role of a family member, such as ELLI-Q, ‘she’ is a live-in friend. Reminding us to have a drink of water, take tablets, eat, she will read a story to them, even make calls, send messages and suggest exercise. We are more accepting of, reliant on and happier with ... technology and nowhere more so than in the kitchen.

The connected kitchen is not far from becoming the SMART Kitchen, which is phenomenal considering the ‘connected kitchen’ isn’t widely in use yet!

Appliances able to connect to our mobile devices to let us know what ingredients, items, supplies are needed have been helping to reduce food-waste since 2015/16 and are now becoming more widely available and affordable. Fridges with built in webcams allowing us to check their contents whilst at the supermarket.?

All this technology is making it possible for people to cook from scratch with little (or no) knowledge and skill. Connected appliances enabling competent cooks to become highly skilled home-chefs.

These are the kitchens of today, not tomorrow and will influence which new home is purchased and will be able to influence the price paid. If we are all to spend much more time at home in the future, and we are the Pandemic has ensured that; then we will divert more of our available financial resource to be spent on and in the home. Making our home and especially the kitchen, the restaurants, bars and resorts that we won’t be visiting quite as often.

Advancing technology is also enabling simple kitchenwares to support both novice and expert kitchen users. These SMART scales will adjust recipe quantities for the user when they make a mistake and perhaps add to much of one ingredient, they’ll provide nutritional information and connect to mobile devices.

?Not content with its empire inside our homes, the kitchen (funded by the Pandemic) is beginning a significant takeover of the Garden too; a trend currently in its early stages yes, but one that equipment & furniture manufacturers, designers and developers ignore at their peril.

The outdoor kitchen is coming of age. The uncertainty surrounding potential restrictions about family groups meeting indoors has meant that we are seeing people plan & prepare for outdoor dinner parties, lunches and a few of those people, are installing outdoor kitchens now. This will mean that no-one should miss out on the fun and conversation because they are indoors cooking.

A take on 'RESET' ...