Cooking up a treat

Other manufacturers have created crossovers with established brands to create unique designs. Poggenpohl supplies the P’7340, designed by world-renowned automobile company Porsche, which in addition to providing a certain level of novelty also means a designer can be confident of the quality of the product.

Tie-ups with companies such as Porsche are indicative of the ever-increasing research that now goes into kitchen design, which in turn provides designers with many more options to create bespoke culinary spaces.

“Kitchens have reached a level of comfort and functionality which was unthinkable a few years back. Soft-closing drawers, pull-outs and doors are now being considered standard in kitchens,” Thomas Klee, area sales manager of Poggenpohl, pointed out.

Open space

With the kitchen becoming a larger feature of a development, there is also a marked trend for non-cooking related innovations to be included in the space.

“Kitchens have become the social nucleus; the kitchen is the centre of the family, not just a working room, but a room for communication, for the meeting of family and friends. The kitchen is equipped with multimedia functions, and is connected to the web and other house functions,” said Klee.

As a result, clients are increasingly demanding facilities that allow the kitchen to be used as a ‘control centre’ for the rest of the building.

“The kitchen will also gain greater control of the rest of the household with touch screen computers allowing consumers to control a variety of aspects of the home, including lighting, heating and cooling, entertainment systems, security and more,” said Priyadarshi.

The kitchen as a social hub also means there will be an overall increase in clients asking for open-plan kitchens, which encourage interaction.

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