A Good Design is that which has space for everything you need. This is most in evidence in a Kitchen as it is the most functional part of the home and its design is guided not only by how one uses the space but also by the sizes of the various equipments and storage components. The Intelligence quotient of the Kitchen is determined by three primary aspects: the shortest distances made possible, ergonomics and the correct massing of wall and base cabinets thereof and the materials and textures used. All of these are underpinned by the most important factor: the people who use the kitchen and how they use it.

Intelligence in Kitchen design can be broken into two parts,

Intelligence in designing the functional aspect of the kitchen

When training my team, I christened the relationship between the primary purposes of the Kitchen the Holy Trinity, i.e.: the Cooking, the Preparation & Storage of Food and its related utilities. An Intelligent Kitchen design has to firstly recognizes the ratio of the Holy Trinity that works for the Client in question and plan accordingly. This is done by understanding how and what the client prepares & stores in the kitchen and then the distances to and from activity centers are planned accordingly. We also adhere by the Work Triangle, i.e.: the distances between the Hob, Sink and Refrigerator, as these are the most travelled steps in a kitchen. When a kitchen design does not take this into account, every task takes longer and results in daily frustration.

Thirdly, as food preparation is an activity that directly impacts our health, hygiene is paramount in a kitchen. We ensure that we

choose the materials and textures in the kitchen wisely so that maintenance is not cumber some.

Using technology to make your Kitchen smarter and also well-designed

IoT is slowly making each area of our home smarter, and the kitchen is definitely a space that could use some smarts, Intelligent systems are being developed that can track your usage of everyday essentials, some systems not only track your usage, but also help you place orders for the same online, so you don't have to worry about suddenly running out of eggs just as the kids feeling like having a waffle or an omelette.

Technology will impact not only how we use & function in each space to make our everyday easier, but also impact how it is designed and built around us making it faster and more in sync with us

One such device is The Dash button, that can live anywhere in your house, but the kitchen makes the most sense. With a tap, the Dash can order whatever you want straight through your Amazon account. So the next time you need more coffee or paper towels, the Dash button is just a press away without the hassle of hopping in your car or turning on a computer.

There are also devices that can actually track the garbage that you throw out (you need to scan the barcode of the item you are throwing in the dustbin) once the barcode is scanned, the device automatically creates a shopping list for you in your favorite shopping website.

Technology is also being developed to help you design your kitchen intelligently, using the principles of design already outlined in Point A, there are softwares that use Artificial intelligence to help you plan your kitchen in an instant.

The software of course would need certain user inputs like your size of kitchen, your essential requirements and the colors you like, but once you have given this input, the system creates an ideal kitchen design for you which you can see in 3D and also get an accurate design estimate.
Imagine, you can do this for 100s of kitchen designs, what would normally take weeks, now takes only a few minutes.

To summarize , there are exciting times ahead for the Kitchen and home design industry, where technology will impact not only how we use and function in each space to make our everyday easier, but also impact how it is designed and built around us making it faster and more in sync with us.