TIDA NZ 2017 – Designer kitchen entrant – David Craig of Craig & Coltart Architects

The brief was to design a new kitchen within the living space of a narrow Victorian row house that would become a part of the living room furniture and integrate itself into the space. It had to accommodate living room activities as well as perform its cooking and storage functions and be modern but sympathetic to the character of the home.

As you enter the room you walk through the kitchen joinery with the first interaction as a piece of furniture formed with shelving to your left and cupboards above, framing the door way. On the living side of the kitchen is a day bed for the grandchildren to interact with the grandparents while in the kitchen.

The space was maximised by fitting a walk in pantry under the stairs behind the wall. We also used the space underneath the day bed to enable kitchen extraction to the exterior and accommodate sound system and other components.

We reduced the visual the bulk of the joinery by matching it to the wall colour.

The dark oak timber elements reference some existing furniture pieces and trim elements such as the high dado line that determines the height of the joinery and leads your eye into the room. A series of open cupboards and shelves in the timber finish reduced the overall scale of the joinery and create the feeling of being a piece of furniture. Oak dowel handles give the physical sensation of touching a piece of timber furniture.

A carefully orchestrated selection of different light fittings with a consistent visual language also helped to link the kitchen and living areas together.

Story by: Trends