wall behind
851 buildings
-I- *F v
For the view, give each workspace a window to the outside— windows overlooking life (192) ; surround the space with thick walls which contain shelves and storage space—half-open
WALL (193), THICK WALLS (197), OPEN SHELVES (200), WAIST-HIGH shelf (201) ; arrange a pool of incandescent light over the work table to set it off—pools of light (252) ; and try to make a sitting place, next to the workspace, so that the pulse of work, and talk can happen easily throughout the day—sitting circle (185). For details on the shape of the workspace, see the shape
OF INDOOR SPACE ( I 9 I). . . .
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| 184 COOKING LAYOUT* |
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853
. . . within the farmhouse kitchen (139), or any other kind of kitchen, it is essential that the cooking area be fashioned as a workshop for the preparation of food, and not as some kind of magazine kitchen with built-in counters and decorator colors. This down-to-earth and working character of a good kitchen comes in large part from the arrangement of the stove and food and counter.
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Cooking is uncomfortable if the kitchen counter is too short and also if it is too long.
Efficiency kitchens never live up to their name. They are based on the notion that the best arrangement is one that saves the most steps; and this has led to tiny, compact kitchens. These compact layouts do save steps, but they usually don’t have enough counter space. Preparing dinner for a family is a complex operation; several things must go on at once, and this calls for the simultaneous use of counter space for different projects. If there isn’t enough counter space, then the ingredients and utensils for one thing must be moved, washed, or put away before the next thing can be prepared; or else things become so jumbled that extra time and effort must be taken to find what’s needed at the proper moment. On the other hand, if the counter is too long or too spread out, the various points along its length are too far apart—and cooking is again uncomfortable, because your movements as you cook are so inefficient and slow.
Empirical support for the notion that there is insufficient counter space in many kitchens comes from a recent work by the Small Homes Council, University of Illinois. The Council found that in over a hundred housing developments, 67 per cent had too little counter space. No one complained that their kitchens were too large.
In The Owner Built Home (Yellow Springs, Ohio, 1961, Volume IV, p. 30), Ken Kern notes that a principal concept in cooking design is to provide for storage and workspace at each of
854.
184 COOKING LAYOUT
the major cooking centers in the kitchen. Drawing on a Cornell University study he identifies the major cooking centers as the sink, the stove, the refrigerator, the mixing, and the serving areas. To provide storage for each center requires 12 to 15 feet of free counter space, excluding the sink, drainboards, and stove. (The Cornell Kitchen, Glenn Beyer, Cornell University, 1952.)
As far as the limits on the distance between these major cooking centers are concerned, there is less empirical evidence. Estimates vary. The rule of thumb we postulate is that no two of them should be more than three or four steps, or about 10 feet, apart.
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| A kitchen that really ivorks: huge, but great. |
Therefore:
To strike the balance between the kitchen which is too small, and the kitchen which is too spread out, place the stove, sink, and food storage and counter in such a way that:
1. No two of the four are more than 10 feet apart.
2. The total length of counter—excluding sink, stove, and refrigerator—is at least 12 feet.
3. No one section of the counter is less than 4 feet long.
There is no need for the counter to be continuous or
entirely “built-in” as it is in many modern kitchens—it can even consist of free-standing tables or counter tops. Only the three functional relationships described above are critical.
TOWNS
on it, and confronting others with it. It is easy to defend this weakness of character on the grounds of expediency. But however many excuses are made for it, in the end weakness of character destroys a person; no one weak in character can love himself. The self-hate that it creates is not a condition in which a person can become whole.
By contrast, the person who becomes whole, states his own nature, visibly, and outwardly, loud and clear, for everyone to see. He is not afraid of his own self; he stands up for what he is; he is himself, proud of himself, recognising his shortcomings, trying to change them, but still proud of himself and glad to be himself.
But it is hard to allow that you which lurks beneath the surface to come out and show itself. It is so much easier to live according to the ideas of life which have been laid down by others, to bend your true self to the wheel of custom, to hide yourself in demands which are not yours, and which do not leave you full.
It seems clear, then, that variety, character, and finding your own self, are closely interwoven. In a society where a man can find his own self, there will be ample variety of character, and character will be strong. In a society where people have trouble finding their own selves, people will seem homogeneous, there will be less variety, and character will be weak.
If it is true that character is weak in metropolitan areas today, and we want to do something about it, the first thing we must do, is to understand how the metropolis has this effect.
II.
How does a metropolis create conditions in which people find it hard to find themselves?
We know that the individual forms his own self out of the values, habits and beliefs, and attitudes which his society presents him with. [George Herbert Mead, Mind, Self and Society.] In a metropolis the individual is confronted by a vast tableau of different values, habits and beliefs and attitudes. Whereas, in a primitive society, he had merely to integrate the traditional beliefs (in a sense, there was a self already there for the asking), in modern society each person has literally to fabricate a self, for himself, out of the chaos of values which surrounds him.
If, every day you do something, you meet someone with a slightly different background, and each of these peoples5 response to what you do is different even when your actions are the same, the situation becomes more and more confusing. The possibility that you can become secure and strong in yourself, certain of what you are, and certain of what you are doing, goes down radically. Faced constantly with an unpredictable changing social world, people no longer generate the strength to draw on themselves; they draw more and more on the approval of others; they look to see whether people are smiling when they say something, and if they are, they go on saying