Kitchen design was once based on the assumption that a stay-at-home mom prepared meals for a family, because the kitchen was used only for cooking. It could thus be separate from the rest of the house, with its facilities confined only to a single function.
The advent of the working woman has had a profound impact on the kitchen design over the past 25 years. During the week, when everyone’s schedule is full and people are busy, meals are as likely to be “zapped” in the microwave as created from scratch. In addition, men and children are now active participants in meal preparation.
Our current time constraints, which allow for less time to devote to cleaning chores, have also meant more emphasis on ease of maintenance as a major criterion in selecting materials for the kitchen.
As social and family roles have changed and evolved, the kitchen has changed also , becoming the heart of of the home for some families. The kitchen’s isolation ended as it opened up and connected to other areas of the home, becoming the central gathering space for family and also friends.
Kitchen has grown in size during real estate “boom” cycles, focusing the design challenge on how the best plan sizable, rather than very limited, compartmented space. Concern with health changed the types of foods we buy, store, and serve more packaged goods and fewer canned and fresh foods. Garbage handling has become an important issue, increasing the space needs for recycling household trash.