NEW COOK TOP DESIGN CROSSES THE LINE

Every know and then something comes along that makes you stop in your tracks and makes you wonder how you lived so long with out this lovely thing.

A hot design trend in Europe for the past several years, inline cooking has finally arrived in the USA and those innovative folks at Kuppersbusch, the 135 year old German appliance company, the people who brought us the induction wok, catalytic convection ovens and the iconic honey-comb cook top, has now launched the first 42” inline cook top for residential use.

As one of the worlds largest manufacturer of restaurant cooking equipment, Küppersbusch often takes ideas and concepts developed in the commercial kitchen and incorporates them into the home. The inline cook top is one such concept.

In the chaotic atmosphere of a resturant kitchen, where a intricate ballet of boiling water, open flames, sharp pointy things and a cast of many, all moving about to create a meal, we find that safety and efficiency are still at the heart of this primal kitchen.

To avoid burning or scalding oneself and to keep from reaching over a pan to stir another, we find the burners of the inline cook top are aligned in a single horizontal row, all in easy reach and control of the chef. Now we find this simple, but brilliant idea, available for the American home.

The sexy black glass, 42”, inline cook top with black iron grates brings on a whole new meaning to having a “haute kitchen”.

MY LUNCH WITH ARNOLD

I was invited to attend a luncheon last week with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, former Prime Minister Tony Blair and Author of “The World is Hot, Crowded and Flat” Thomas Friedman. I have been involved with environmental issues for over 30 years, ever since my first Earth Day rally in 1974, but this event was on an entirely different plane than I have ever been associated with before.

I realized that the revolution had moved to a new level…it wasn’t about fighting the machine…this was the machine. The event was attended by Governors of other states, UN delegates, international media, scientists and engineers, non-profit organizations and corporate leaders…this wasn’t your tofu eating, long hair, Birkenstock wearing radicals…this was people from all walks of life, from around the world, multi-cultural, trans-generational and across all economic boundaries. All on the same page regarding Climate Change with no finger-wagging or blame assignment. They were there for one purpose…to find solutions to a problem of global proportions.

This luncheon was part of larger conference, the 2nd Annual Governors Conference on Climate Change, the Road to Copenhagen. A week of speeches, presentations and workshops all centered on Climate Change and what governments, organizations and corporations can do to be involved.

With all these powerful people, government bodies and organizations, the message I walked away with from my lunch with the Govenor was a simple one…”that it is the individual who holds the power to make a difference”…by the choices we make and the actions we take, we can alter the course of life on this planet, now and for generations to come.

The leaders wrapped up their three-day summit in Los Angeles by signing several declarations and statements, including pledging to pursue cleaner transportation alternatives, to work together to stop de-forestation and to contribute towards low-carbon development in developing nations.

I left the conference re-born with a new vigor as well as a new commitment towards the future. No matter what the talking heads on TV may say, it was clear that Climate Change is real and that a clear path on both a local as well as global level has been defined and that through our individual actions we can make a difference. I was quoted in 1974, while attending Earth Day as saying, “The future is deeply rooted in the actions we take today”, that challenge has never been truer, I only hope that we move a little faster than the 30 years that have brought us to this point today.

THE FUTURE AS IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN

More than seventy years ago, the “Futurist” predicted that our world would be awash in jet-packs, flying-cars, moving sidewalks, personal robot helpers, mile-high cities, and let us not forget the ambiguous vacation on the Moon, or better yet on Mars.

Much like a feather on a string in front of a playful kitten, the kitchen of the future with all its time and labor saving gadgets and gizmo’s, has been dangled in front of the American consumer since the 1939 New York Worlds Fair, but for me the future become a reality one very hot summer day in 1960, while I stood in line at Disneyland to see the house that would change my life forever, the house of the future…the Monsanto House.

My first impression of the future, as an eight year old boy, was that it would be cool. Ice cold air-condition air blew on my skin as I walked in from a hot and sticky Anaheim heat wave. There was the future…laid out before me like a buffet. The embodiment of every science fiction movie, TV show, book, magazine and comic book I had ever seen, all before me in glorious molded plastic, and as expected, everything was white or chrome with accents of color, it would be easy to see my life in this home of tomorrow.

And the kitchen of this brave new world was laid out as if a medical laboratory. A shiny, gleaming, pristine environment where actual food and food preparation would be banned and we would pop “food-pills” and consume “radar-ranged” freeze-dried dinners, and our personal robot helper would clean up the dishes using no water in the sonic dishwasher and we would all talk to our friends and family on a Viz-A-Phone after dinner.

Thankfully many of these visions are still the stuff of science fiction. But as we wade knee-deep into the 21st century, we find that a few of Monsanto’s visions have survived and evolved. The ubiquitous microwave oven has evolved from the radar-range in to an everyday kitchen cornerstone. The magnetic induction cook-top with its heat-free cooking is right out of the Jetson’s and the integrated dishwasher, though not sonic I am sorry to say, is a standard feature in every American home.

So, where is the future I was promised, I had invested all that time in books and movies and I knew every nook and cranny and back road of the future and with great disappointment I woke one morning to the world as it was and lived out my days feeling a little bit cheated. But then something happened, the future caught up with me. I realized one day, not so long ago, that I am living in the future of my youth, but only without the official uniform of the future, the one-piece unitard.

I have my Bluetooth firmly lodged into my ear, I drive an electric car, I can watch TV as well as communicate instantaneously, around the world via email, IM or Twitter…all from my cell phone. I don’t have a personal robot assistant, but I do have to lift my legs every now and then with the RUMBA comes scooting along the floor. I knew for sure I was living in the future, as I sat on my sofa, watching live images streaming in from Mars, while eating micro-waved popcorn. Now, if I only had a jet-pack.

THE HEARTH STILL MAKES A HOME

Today, when uncertainty surrounds us and the world outside seems lost to confusion and chaos, we seek, almost by instinct, sanctuary and communal comfort, much like our ancestors once did around an open fire.

Reaching into our collective past, to a time when all family, community and social activates took place deep within the heart of the castle, we find the “Hearth”, a place where life, feasting, entertainment and communal gatherings centered.

Today’s hearth, the modern kitchen, has evolved far from its original function of food preparation to that of “the social hub of the home”. In the modern kitchen, the family, both nuclear as well as tribal, still gathers to share, rejuvenate and commune together, but the walls have come down and this once hidden and secluded place is now part of a larger social arena. As the hearth of yore, the modern kitchen serves as a meeting place, a dinning room, a home-office, a place to do homework; it can also serve as a sanctuary for quite reflection, or a place to gather for fun and entertainment.

Once the center of all communal life, the modern hearth has taken on a new domestic role, now finding it self reflecting a family lifestyle based on the sharing of traditional roles and functions. With a more democratic lifestyle the modern hearth embraces the kitchen as a multifunctional arena, were food is prepared, people talk, homework is finished and where family and friends sit by a modern hearth to bathe in the warmth of community.

So throw another log on the fire, pull the children closer and tell a tale or two of days gone by, and let the winds of uncertainty blow outside and feel secure in the natural warmth of the hearth of your modern castle.

ONE SIZE FITS ALL...THE NEW KITCHEN MATRIX

The 60cm x 60cm (24”x24”) oven size has long been a European standard for over 30 years. It was introduced in Germany in the mid-1960’s as a form of consumer protection.

This standardized oven size would allow consumers to replace their oven with newer models with new options, features and aesthetics, not on the size of the hole left by the old oven. The US appliance industry could learn a thing or two from their European cousins, as almost every US manufacturer builds their product to their on standard, forcing the American consumer to purchase a new oven from the same supplier or having to remodel the existing kitchen to allow for new appliances.

For the first time in nearly 30 years, a new size matrix of 60cm x 45cm (24”x18”) has been introduced into the US market by the Europeans. First launched in the form of a steam-convection oven and then as an integrated coffee machine. Now all cooking elements are available, including a convection oven, steam-convection oven, micro-convection oven as well as a coffee system and now, for the first time in the US, a fully integrated TV.

The new aesthetic opens up a whole new design opportunity for personalization, with the ability to introduce in line cooking as well as the opportunity to place cooking elements throughout the kitchen and living areas. With personalization at the forefront of modern kitchen design, we find that this new matrix offers the consumer the ability to mix and match appliances to reflect their individual cooking style. Though one size may not fit all...I am sure that it will find a much appreciated niche.

JUST HOW GREEN IS AN ALL GLASS KITCHEN?

At a recent design show in Los Angeles this past June, I had the opportunity to see, firsthand, the highly touted sustainable all-glass kitchen from a very high profile Italian manufacturer. At first glance, it appeared to be the “holy grail” of environmental kitchen design. The doors, drawers, box, counter top and toe kick were all made of glass and it was this over use of glass that got me thinking, “Just how green is glass?” When we think of glass, the first thought that comes to mind is its ability to be recycled and reused over and over again, but more often than not, the creation process is often overlooked.

When seeing this all glass kitchen for the first time, the thought of fingerprints and chipped edges come to mind long before the impact that the creation process of glass has on the environment. It is understood and appreciated by the populous at large, that glass, in most cases, is 100% recyclable and can be used in the process to create new glass, but in recent years, several environmental organizations as well as government agencies, are beginning to take a closer look at how glass is created.

The formula and process to create glass has changed very little over the centuries. Sand, soda ash, limestone, dolomite and feldspar are mixed together and then baked in a blast furnace. This process of bonding and melting can play out over several hours or even days before the glass even begins to cool. The intense heat required to manufacturer glass, 2,750°F takes a tremendous amount of energy consumption, resulting in enormous greenhouse gas emissions. It has been calculated that producing 1 ton of glass will create 2 tons of CO2. The manufacturing of glass releases high doses of health threatening pollution into the atmosphere, like nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide, as well as toxic particulates made of metals, chemicals, acids and dust, small enough to easily enter the nose and throat and reach the lungs.

Mining for sand, the primary ingredient of glass, is a practice that is becoming an ecological nightmare as the demand for glass increases on a global scale. And if that wasn’t enough to put you off an all glass kitchen, the shear weight of glass, especially when used in this application, would leave an immense carbon-foot print when transporting from Europe to the United States.

So we must ask ourselves, just how “green” is an all glass kitchen? As discussed in the beginning, the beauty of glass is its ability to be recycled over and over again. Its fatal flaw is the cost to the environment in its primary production.

EXPLORING THE BOUNDARIES BETWEEN SPACE AND FUNCTIONALITY

With space at a premium, imagine a kitchen without boundaries or barriers, an environment free from conventional thought and restrictions, a kitchen created to reflect the needs and life style of the modern homeowner. The new "kitchen matrix" allows for maximum usage of space with the focus on utilization and optimization of the interiors and exposed work areas, allowing the homeowner, apartment dweller or loft inhabitant to maximize the usage of the space at hand. Like the Roman God Janas, who could see the past and future at the same time, the modern kitchen is centered on the duality of purpose and space.

The new approch to kitchen design is to challenge the way we look at space to better understand the problem. As designers, we must move away from a one-dimensional approach to kitchen design and began to think of the kitchen as a multi-dimensional canvas. The static, cluttered, restricted and unchanging kitchen of the past must now evolve into a living stage, a place where it is possible to create an environment that alters old beliefs about space and structure and infuse new concepts that reflect the needs of today’s modern homeowner.

Today’s kitchen has grown far from its primary function of food preparation to that of “the social center of the home”. In the modern kitchen, the family, both nuclear as well as tribal, still gathers to share, rejuvenate and commune together, but the walls have come down and this once hidden and secluded place is now part of a larger social arena. It serves as a meeting place, a dinning room, a home-office, a place to do homework; it can even serve as a hide away for quite reflection, as well as a place to gather for family fun and social entertaining.

The modern kitchen, in its new domestic role, finds itself reflecting a family lifestyle based on the sharing of traditional roles and functions. The living area embraces the kitchen as a multifunctional arena, were food is prepared, people talk, homework is finished and where family and friends sit by a modern hearth to bath in the warmth of community. Todays kitchen is open to the rest of the home, and as such, the kitchen now must function on several levels, from food preparation to social interaction, from entertainment center to living-room. More furniture, than cupboards, the modern kitchen must blend seamlessly into the living areas of the home, successfully achieving the delicate balance between form and function.