Kitchens by Property

A kitchen is sized by the room it goes in, but it is specified by how the property is used. A villa kitchen is usually the largest element on an open-plan ground floor and is planned around cooking and entertaining. A condominium kitchen has to work within a fixed footprint and often a fixed service position, so the gain comes from height and from what goes inside the cabinets. A townhouse sits between the two and is frequently long and narrow. An apartment that will be let is specified for heavier use than one lived in by its owner.

Multi-unit work is a different job from a private kitchen. One design is drawn and then repeated across units where the dimensions vary, so the specification has to hold while the sizes move. Finishes are chosen for how they survive turnover rather than for how they photograph on handover day. Lead times matter more than choice, because a delay on one trade holds up a whole floor. Hotels add a further constraint, since a kitchen in a serviced unit is used by people who did not choose it and will not maintain it.