In the Kitchen House, the protagonist is the kitchen its self. The house is designed to celebrate all of the rituals around cooking and eating, and allows for a variety of environments, distinguished by smell, light, views, textures and external exposure. The entire ground floor blurs the boundary between private and public, by continuing the materiality of the street through the plan, bringing the social scene of street food into the footprint of the home. This creates the opportunity to re-think home thresholds. Picnic culture is prevalent in Britain, however British weather dictates when picnics can occur outdoors. Traditional picnics are brought inside the kitchen house, in turn granting access to amenities that cause discomfort in a public picnic, such as use of a toilet and running water. This presents the opportunity to re-imagine a bathroom.
Wake up and smell the coffee…
In a house where everything is about the kitchen, it is evident that toilets will be essential to complete the cycle of eating food. The toilet is found in the undergrowth of a picnic meadow, made secluded by foliage to give privacy but not break the connection to the picnic. Hand washing is achieved at a variety of taps located throughout the house, that are also fundamental to food preparation. These taps reside at different datums, some of which may be used as a dish washer, that doubles up as a shower or a bath. Allowing the new protagonist to take over the home removes the original kitchen obstacle and presents exciting new design opportunities.