After the rise of the multi-functional room, they have been a trend ever since – and it doesn’t look as though they’re going away any time soon. As more and more of us open up our downstairs from a collection of small cramped rooms into one huge space though, the problems as well as the benefits of this kind of living can become obvious. One room zoned into specific areas for cooking, dining and relaxing appears to be a dream, but is the reality somewhat different? Together with Harvey Jones, fitters of retailers of bespoke fitted kitchens, we take a look at this new kitchen trend.
Open-plan living
Whether it’s entertaining your guests, leading a sociable lifestyle, or designing a room that offers a lot of light, open-plan living may seem like the right design for you. For multi-functional rooms that include a kitchen, the benefits are clear. It prevents the cook from feeling isolated, for a start. No more retiring to the kitchen for half an hour on your own to prepare meals. A bespoke kitchen scheme that includes an island or peninsula that looks out onto the rest of the space means that cooking and preparing food need no longer be a solitary process.
Often given as another reason for going open plan is the need to keep an eye on children. From toddlers playing to teens doing their homework, for busy families a space that performs several functions allows the family to spend time together even when they’re performing many different tasks.
Year on year, house sizes are decreasing. Because of this, dining rooms can seem like an extravagance that uses up too much room. However, a kitchen diner can be a good way of maximising space and design. However, you do have to be canny when planning a multi-functional room to ensure all zones work well together and recognize that this kind of layout will reduce privacy, particularly if you’re opening up the whole of your downstairs. Having nowhere quiet to retire while the kids watch TV or play can become a problem. There are also the issues of noise from appliances that might disturb you or that clearly evident pile of washing-up nagging at you as you sit down for an evening of TV or a quiet read with your favourite book or magazine. Fewer walls also mean less space to put furniture, which can lead to a room that’s crammed around the walls or jumbled in the centre.
How does design move on from open-plan?
Broken-plan living is now the new trend for 2017 – setting a precedent that may take over the trend of open-plan living. The idea is to retain all the things you love about open-plan – particularly the light and openness – while at the same time zoning the space to allow for more privacy should you need it. Rather than doing this with colours and textures as you would in a true open-plan arrangements, broken-plan employs structural elements such as half-walls, dividing shelves, changing levels, walls of glass and even mezzanines to delineate and formalise areas for different uses.
How does it work?
To define spaces, or to cordon them off to create new spaces, ‘walls’ of boxed shelving or other furniture can be used in order to naturally define new spaces in the room. Of course, you don’t want to regress back to small poky rooms, so don’t cram the shelves full of books – instead, artfully arrange a few favourite pieces to signal the change between one room and another and leave some of the shelves open to allow light to freely cascade from one zone to another. If you’re just starting your project, consider just knocking down half a wall and leaving the top open, allowing sight-lines through but at the same time giving you more wall space to play with. While hatches should remain a distinctly 70’s invention, a larger aperture in the wall between a kitchen and sitting room, for example, is a workable and modern substitute.
Furniture should be used subtly in order to signal off different parts of the room. Also, consider building in pocket doors that will slide out of sight into the walls when you want to join two rooms but can be closed quickly to create separation when needed.
In recent years, Crittall-style windows have come back into fashion. Metal framed windows and sometimes doors traditionally used in industrial spaces or as exterior walls onto gardens have celebrity fans such as TV presenter and architect George Clarke, who celebrates their ability to cleverly divide an internal space without shutting off one room totally from another.
The ideal aspects of broken-plan spaces is that they can accommodate changing floor and ceiling heights, helping to bring rooms together in a more appropriate way.
