Rectangular kitchen islands are boring, claims designer

Designer and university lecturer Johnny Grey has vented his frustrations at “incredibly boring” rectangular island units in kitchens.

Grey (pictured) claimed that he is often “at war” with big box designs that “basically bully people”.

Kitchen designer Colin Wong agreed with Grey arguing that designers can often be “lazy” and use Google and Pinterest to source designs.

“Kitchen design isn’t all about the island,” he explained. “It’s not all about the kitchen at all. If I come into an open-plan kitchen that I’ve designed and all I can see is the island then I’ve done something extremely wrong. My skill is to introduce feel and flow so that no one element screams out at me.”

Day True director Tony Robson also backs Grey’s views adding that some designers just “put an island in for the sake of putting an island in”.

However, he argued that the kitchen island is still a working space first and foremost and that designers would put proper consideration into a design and how it interacts with the space around it.

Snug Kitchens director Nick McColgan agreed claiming that a rectangular island would only be used when necessary.

“Most of us are working in spaces where we have to sit an island into a room which is rectangular and has straight, not curved, edges,” he added. “Because of that, the maximum space for the island and enough walk-around area is achieved by using something that mimics the space you’re fitting it into. So it’s a spare peg into a square hole, rather than a round peg in a square hole where you would get lots of wasted space.”

  • For full feature see kbbreview January issue, pages 36-39
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