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THE SMART KITCHEN
How to Design a Comfortable, Safe, Energy-Efficient, and Environment-Friendly Workspace
by David Goldbeck
A ground-breaking and innovative guide to making kitchens "user friendly," energy-efficient, safe, and comfortable. To this end, every element of the kitchen - appliances, materials, fixtures, and design - is discussed with the goal of selecting the most appropriate one. "
"This book picks up where kitchen designers, architects and other books leave off. To me, the kitchen is a workshop which should facilitate the preparation of wholefoods - in a safe, comfortable and environmentally conscious space. mY involvment with cookbook writing gives me a deep insight into kitchen design."
- David Goldbeck
Featured, among others, in The New York Times, Fine Homebuilding, HOME, 1001 Home Ideas, Practical Homeowner
Featured in The Bathroom, the Bathroom, and the Aesthetics of Waste (Ellen Lupton and Abbot MIller)
Although originally published in 1989 (and updated in 1992) the ideas in The Smart Kitchen are finally being implimented in some quarters. - David Goldbeck (2007)
From the Introduction
It's time to take a fresh look at how our kitchens are designed and equipped.
Kitchens are not friendly enough. Although they are often interestingly designed and beautifully decorated, this design and decor too frequently is without regard to comfort and practicality. Hard floors, fixed counter heights, inadequate ventilation, bumped heads from cabinet doors, and annoying noise levels are enough to drive even the most dedicated cook from this workspace.
Kitchens should be designed with regard to people's differing physical capabilities and needs. The diverse ages, heights, strengths, and mobility of current users, as well as future cooks, should be considered in order to provide "universal access."
Likewise, appliances and fixtures could be more sympathetic to culinary tasks. The microwave oven, the newest and fastestgrowing addition to the modern kitchen, needs to be looked at more carefully, in terms of both safety and cuisine. Sinks with no forgiveness to dropped dishes, ineffective air quality equipment, inaccessible storage, and unresponsive cooktops are other examples of standard features that are no friend of the cook.
Kitchens are not safe enough. In fact, they are the most dangerous room in the house. Dennis Smith, author of the Fire Safety Book, says that more fires start in the kitchen than in any room other than the living room, and 16 percent of all fatal fires start there. According to a 1983 study by the American Association of Poison Control Centers, 64 percent of all poison victims are children under six years of age, and more than two thirds of all poisonings are from nondrug substances, such as kitchen supplies. The extent to which electric shocks occur in the kitchen and elsewhere has prompted the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers and the Underwriters Laboratory to take action in the form of public education campaigns.
Kitchens are also the source of a substantial amount of wasted energy. Largely because of poorly designed appliances, particularly refrigerators, kitchens in the United States, according to the American Association for an Energy Efficient Economy, utilize a whopping 30 percent of the domestic fuel supply. This massive waste of resources is directly responsible for the costly construction of otherwise unnecessary power plants, and it is indirectly responsible for poor air quality, global warming, and other environmental problems. Although the U.S. government has mandated major appliance efficiency standards, these only eliminate the worst offenders. Truly effective action is left in the hands of consumers and builders; the public can have an enormous impact by shopping for energy efficiency.
Ironically, kitchens are often unhealthy spaces. Cooking gases are known to create a form of air pollution that can sicken members of the household, but this is often not attended to. Even the materials used in kitchen construction can cause adverse health reactions.
Proper lighting may nurture the health of the occupants by adding to their exposure of natural light as well as decreasing accidents in the kitchen and saving energy.
Kitchens are not involved enough with food itself. More food production could easily be integrated into their design. Baking, canning, seed sprouting, food dehydrating, and the like are all easier when the kitchen is set up to accommodate these activities.
There must also be a more active concern for the recycling of kitchengenerated wastes to conserve resources and cut down on the accumulation of solid waste. As with food production, recycling and the composting of food wastes can be facilitated by attention being paid to these needs in kitchen design.
- David Goldbeck
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