De Giulio believes the best kitchens are the ones with separate cleanup and the prep areas. The "Kitchen Triangle" is a rather outdated notion in kitchen design. How do you handle the "traffic flow" in a kitchen, for the cook and for others?
I was an early CKD [certified kitchen designer] when I was young, so I learned the discipline of the "kitchen work triangle." And, I think those are very appropriate tests where ways to determine a good layout of a kitchen.
If the three basics, the refrigerator, the sink and the cooktop are too far away from each other, or you're having to walk around things to get to them, no matter what your philosophy is, that will not be a very efficient kitchen.
So I believe in that, but because of kitchens becoming much larger, now there is a different chemistry to it. You need to think about things like "zones" a little more. Let's say the "preparation zone," the relationship of those three appliances to one another. Also the "cleanup zone," an area where you are not interfering with each other. The best kitchens I think are when the cleanup area and the prep area don't intermix.
A lot of activity goes on at that point. The size of the kitchen is probably the most dramatic change in kitchen design that I have seen over the years.
People want to hang out in their kitchens, they don't want just a kitchen. Then that produces another part of the chemistry, how can you not just simply flow from room to room, but flow within the room.
In terms of materials, are there any particular favorites of yours?
I like to think that I am not fixed on anything, but, having said that, I like the alternative woods, such as butternut, which I feel is a beautiful wood. I think all woods are beautiful; it’s a matter of how we combine them. It could even be "repatterning" things, maybe using red oak and white oak together. Walnut and butternut together. At times, this is not the correct solution, one should simply go with the purity of the wood.
Do you see the kitchen morphing more into the interior design of the home itself as opposed to a separate entity?
Oh, most certainly, yes I do. I think that people are realizing that they are no longer bound by the kitchen rules of pick out a wood and now your whole kitchen becomes that wood. It is much more interesting and easier to live with if the kitchen is melded into the home.
If you think of it, a lot of our industry has been driven over the last 40-50 years by manufacturers coming out with different door styles and a certain wood. There is the question of "who drives it?" Is it the client or the designers? Are they coming in and saying this is what we want, what's the next hot thing. I personally don't like to think about the "next hot thing." I like to think about how we can do something really interesting that is going to last a long time, both in style and materials use.
Over the past 10 years or so quite a few unique functions have been added to the kitchen. Are there any unique kitchen add-ons that you have seen?
There are the two things, the aesthetic, it could be armoires in the kitchen, it could be tables, things that have different functions. Or functionality, the interiors of things, great ways to incorporate storage units, cabinetry in a corner for example.
Recently a realtor friend of mine e-mailed me a concept for a "paper shredder" in his kitchen. What with all the identity theft that is going on and, you know what, that was a great idea he had.
