Project Summary

            The task was to repurpose some 500 square feet, which commands the prime views of the approach and surrounding ponds, into a kitchen and dining room suite. The objective was to strike the appropriate balance between the opposing needs for separation and connection. A second goal was to create a space that the residents could easily adapt for the differing requirements of casual living and formal occasions. The hope was to have your dining room and use it too. A flexible balance of separation and connection was sought, to better facilitate contemporary styles of living and entertaining. Thinking out of the box was the key to developing a form that could successfully merge these requirements in one uniquely shaped adaptable space, with a combined potential greater than the sum of the separate parts.

Creative Solutions

            The traditional concept of a distinct dining room was reconsidered in terms of how today’ household regularly use this space for activities like homework or hobbies. The choice was engagement, both external and internal. We removed the rectangular walls of the west room and substituted an elliptical shaped form, under the existing roof structure. This elliptical form was pushed into the kitchen block, with angled wing walls to visually seclude the clean-up area on the north and the window seating on the south. This provided a 180 degree panorama of the countryside and residual space for a walking terrace around the perimeter. As with many quandaries, the solution here was to think outside the box.

            An eleven foot wide passage was created between the kitchen and dining zones. This was desirable for periods of active interchange, but overly exposed for formal events. The solution was a rolling curtain of theatrical scrim. Like a paper wall in a Japanese house, this drape can easily be pulled across to form an enclosing barrier, through which the server makes dramatic exit and entry.

            Pulled aside, the curtain softens the hard edge of separation. The kitchen is designed for socialization and efficiency. Distinct zones are provided for preparation, cooking and clean-up. Study of movement patterns resulted in the choice of two islands, rather than one large unit that would have impeded flow. To the south, off center stage, a quiet place is formed by an L-shaped window seat with storage underneath.

            Surrounding the kitchen, a wide display soffit was provided, giving the room comfortable definition and scale. The tall ceiling makes apparent the room’s context within the larger hall. Twin five foot wide pocket doors provide the option of a physical barrier, when open communication with the living room zone is not desired.

            Material choices were intended to make the most of available sunlight in this vaulted space. Side jambs on the clerestory windows were splayed outward, toward the same cheerful result. Cabinet doors are simple pine, pickled a light blue for clarity, with inserts of acid-aged copper in response to the living room fireplace, which visibly towers above the kitchen soffit. The effect is honest and light.

Results

            The goal of striking a balance between separation and connection was met in a fashion that provides for adaptability. The end result is contemporary and fresh, but reminiscent of something warm and familiar. Two rooms symbiotically united to form not the typical great room, with its lack of choice and definition, but a new genre. One we have taken to calling a life room.