Top 5 Must Haves for Wellness in a Kitchen
In 2018, a Wallpaper* Magazine article finally exposed the “Kitchen Wellness” movement that I have been a huge fan of for a long time. As a Certified Master Kitchen & Bath Designer, many people confuse functional needs with wellness in a kitchen design and I’m always curious about what motivates the choices. We often find that Clients focused on a design-normative aesthetic and jumping outside of that box on wellness conversations can be a major hurdle because it’s actually confusing. What the Wallpaper* article didn’t do a great job of was identifying Wellness Design and you can read more on that at Well here.
Taking WELL principals and applying them to the traditional approach of kitchen planning needs a bit of tweaking and this is something we have been working on a lot at the NKBA. Here are our top 5 recommendations to integrate wellness into your kitchen design.
In our South Gate Kitchen, we designed a lot of organics management for a Vegan.
1. Organics & Packaging Separation
Being a conscientious homeowner and consumer is not just about reducing food packaging waste. Now more than ever organic waste separation, managing the different types of recycled packaging, and overall waste reduction from cooking in a kitchen are critical to our ecosystem. Traditional kitchen design calls this “Waste & Recycling Management” but that seems outdated now. We are not just sorting our recycling, we have reusable bags, organic compost, boxes from the farmers market, packaging we take back to the farmers market, and containers with a refundable deposit. Most kitchens have a small area to manage our bi-products of cooking, but there are better ways such as a minimum 4 bin pull-out that is at least 24” wide, a in-counter stainless steel compost bin, and a drawer or two to store reusable shopping bags.
At our 990 Beach Avenue renovation, the lighting in the kitchen had 4 different sources: Outdoors, track, under-cabinet, and pendant.
2. Adding LED task lighting at work surfaces
A major area of both success and failure in many kitchen design projects is lighting. I get it, not many people think about hiring a design professional and often the electrician is left trying to fit a budget. The low-down on lighting is three fold: 1) colour temperature, 2) lumen output, and 3) colour rendition index. To further complicate matters, there is no one set rule for one project because it depends on age and sight ability, materials, finishes, and light reflectance in the room. Add to the visual limitations and conditions experienced as we age in response to universal design into the mix, and this becomes more increasingly more complex. To make this simpler, an ideal situation is to apply illumination control (such as dimming devices) over all lighting (a requirement in the City of Vancouver) and select quality lighting fixtures with the following:
Dimming: 10% to 100%
Colour temperature: between 2700 - 3500K
Lumens: minimum 500 lm, ideal 800 lm
Colour rendition index: 90 CRI and above
At our Hunter Park residential renovation, the kitchen was a U-Shape with limited space for an active cook. Now, there are 5 preparation zones and one larger baking area.
3. Multiple work zones
I recently started cooking at home 90% of the time and dining out 10% of the time. This means I needed substantially more food storage volume, and I am using 75% fresh food. No, this isn’t a diet and there isn’t a goal, it’s about tasting what is good for me and my health. There is a large vegan movement, vegetarians are on the up, and farm-to-table is massive. All this means that there are multiple preparation zones needed when cooking at home is in a high ration. A primary preparation zone for a single user is a minimum clear work zone spaces that is 36 inches wide by 18 inches deep. Secondary work zones can be as small as 24 inches wide but they are also 18 inches deep and these secondary zones support the primary zone.
At our South Gate Kitchen again, the sink had to be resilient and easy to clean. Just use baking soda and a green scrubby... that’s it!
4. Low maintenance finishes and fixtures
One of my principals with kitchen design is to create a “wash & wear” space with the right materials that work for each homeowner because it all depends who’s doing the cleaning - in-house or outsourced. It is always important to keep top of mind that cabinets are made of wood, wood is not perfect, and to maintain the freshly installed look you need to stay on top of spills with a warm, lightly damp cloth and some mild natural soap. For counters, I’m a strong believer in engineered stones like quartz because they are strong and food safe, but be ware of high-sea imposters because they aren’t equil. Combining with the right splash material means a kitchen that will stand the toll of everyday use. When it comes to plumbing fixtures and sinks, I’m a huge advocate for BLANCO’s quality and their SILGRANIT sinks. Ask me to tell you about the time I threw a hot cast-iron frying pan into a white SILGRANIT sink and nothing happened.
5. Community connection
A little more esoteric, but a kitchen that permits flexibility with entertaining, farm fresh food storage, and easy cooking is extremely important. More time to spend connecting to our roots, neighbours, friends & family is what we all want. Part of that is focusing the orientation and activities within the kitchen to support your lifestyle. This includes everything from how you come into the home, arms loaded with groceries, to how you like your glass of water - filtered or tap. Ensuring that your needs are addressed is how our skill and expertise are put to good use because anyone can put a couple of boxes together with a laminate top and call it a kitchen, but not everyone can understand you and dedicate themselves to finding solutions to suit your direct needs.
Written by Corey Klassen, CMKBD NCIDQ IIDA
