Permitting variation | Kitchen and its crossovers

Projects: R50- Cohousing, Berlin, Ifau und Jesko Fezer + Heide & von Beckerath

KNSM Island Skydome, Wiel Arets Architects

The concept of collective and affordable living and working has been in high demand in the recent years and strives to provide spaces that would benefit both the individual as well as the wider community In addition to that, variation and individualization of space requires a certain simplicity in the way its service areas function that would allow greater degree of freedom in having spaces for living, working and sleeping.

The R50-cohousing project in Berlin-Kreuzberg is a project that was developed through close collaboration with the clients and dealt with different processes of occupancy. The ground floor holds a double height flexible community space that connects the building’s main entrance with the public street space. Quite opposite to what we observed in the Java Island courtyard project, this design explores the idea of all-around balconies on the exterior of the building which allows a direct dialogue and creates a relationship between the building’s architecture and its use. What sets this project apart from the rest is the way in which an extremely regular and compact plan can accommodate a wide range of variation in the spatial organization. The internal layout has a consistent logic of two service cores and one access while promoting individuality and personalization through leaving the use of materials and a collective choice of fittings to the user. The employment of a structured yet open design process uses the main idea of keeping the kitchen and the bathroom tucked in deep into the plan, leaving the ends of the block free for other functions. In a purely practical manner, this type of layout looks at kitchen to be at its efficient best with its location such that it creates a long line of vision right till the main door, promoting control to the user working in the kitchen over the other areas of the house The orientation is such that it addresses both the internal and the external environments while being highly functional and integrated

One of the fundamental things it achieves is the need to not have any scaffolding which reduced long term maintenance and instead creates a gathering space in the balcony which is accessible from the kitchen as well. Running along the same lines as the Java Island project, it creates this threshold between the kitchen and the façade and goes beyond the binary boundaries but creating this buffer space. A question related to the quality of the space can be asked, based on how deep should this extension of the balcony be to retain this sense and code of neighborliness?

The KNSM Island Skydome designed by Wiel Arets explores the idea of kitchen being a place of crossover and harnessing neighborliness. The floorplate comprises of five distinct units which function almost like they are five towers in themselves. What makes this project interesting is the way in which the internal layout of some of the units permits shared environments and interaction through combining a space that belongs to two different units.

The kitchens are designed keeping practicality in mind, without leaving room for views or spatial connections within the house. Instead, the kitchen share the little outdoor space with the balcony of the bedroom, creating interlocking spaces that foster neighborliness and decorum. In a typical Dutch fashion, the building has does not romanticize anything but when it comes to the core inner part of the layout, it becomes highly varied and interesting in terms of dealing with different orientations of the spaces, each unit stacking on itself. The indentations in the façade permit deeper light into the plan while keeping the circulation tight and efficient. The building exudes bold materialization and achieves something that is collaborative and associative in nature. Apart from that, the ground floor level contains fluctuations in height, creating a skyline at ground level, which allows the views to be afforded through the indoor car park from ground level as well.

Conclusion

The critical reflections on the transformations in the space occupied by a kitchen in domestic architecture help us find a thread that connects the past, present and the future. The idea of kitchen in the house as a place that would influence the way other basic activities of the house is cultivated. It can be a starting point while thinking of ways in which the space can adapt and morphologically change the wider urban area through connecting spaces visually, optimizing the space in dense neighborhoods when it comes to central city living, harboring trust based relationships and promoting neighborliness and becoming an instrument of innovation in modern affordable and collective housing. Activities related to kitchen are unique in the sense that they are ambiguously related to the cross boundaries between private and something that is more collective. Rituals of our food consumption are very much a part of how we constitute wider systems of community living and crossovers. Thus, by breaking the binary boundaries between the public and the private, the positioning and addressing the kitchen as a concept can be a starting point of design research that brings about a change in the urban residential typologies The ideologies associated with kitchen embrace future through adopting technological innovations and can thus be a source of learning changing notions of domesticity