Some kitchens are designed to prioritise the cook’s working area, with plenty of room to prepare meals, big cupboards and all the cooking utensils you may need handy. Some others are made to optimise a smaller area, which might be used to both eat and work there. Obviously, it all depends on the size of the kitchen area and the users needs.

We want to introduce to you the “working triangle”. The concept means the triangle you follow to reach everything you need when you are cooking in your kitchen. The 3 most important zones are cooking zone, storage zone, and making zone.

1. Cooking zone: This is where the main cooking takes place , so where you have an oven or a microwave, depending on your cooking skills.
2. Storage zone: you probably keep your food in your kitchen. This area can be divided in two, fresh food (fridge) and non-perishable food (any other cupboard that holds food in your kitchen)
3. Preparation zone: this is the place where you prepare your meals except cooking. It is where you use small home appliances such as the blender, squeezer, rubbish bin etc, and you get your food ready to be moved next to the cooking zone.

So after that, let’s differentiate between the different design styles and the best uses for them.

• Corridor style kitchen: They are perfect for spaces that are longer than wider (Yes! you guessed it right, like a corridor). The kitchen furniture and cabinets are placed in the two longest opposite walls. You should have a distance of 1.20m between to make them easier to use, and place the sink in one of them, with your main cooking area and and preparation area in the other. This kind of design is common in kitchens with two doors. It is interesting to combine colours, materials and different cabinets depths to avoid symmetry and repetitiveness.
• U-style kitchen: This is intended to be perfect to use, because you can reach any place quick and easy. However you need a wide open and quite big area to use it. In some apartments, where space is quite limited, it is common to find a part of this U like an american bar, so you take advantage of the space more efficiently.
• Linear-style kitchen: These are good for smaller kitchens with long and narrow places. They need to be planned properly to avoid too many switches between the different areas we’ve been talking before.
• L-style kitchen: We recommend this layout for medium and big areas. With this you can take advantage of the diagonal space left free in the middle , which allows quick and agile movement. So your working cook triangle is useful in all its power, that is what we want to achieve.
• Isle style kitchen: This is the most loved design, both by cooks and designers for two reasons: it is functionally practical and visually stunning. The design sees the furniture along the walls and a stand alone isle which contains the the cooktop or sink, as you prefer, or even both if you are lucky enough to have a big enough isle.

We can’t think about any other kitchen design in terms of optimising the triangle. Can you?