Page 185 - In Pursuit of the Sunbeam.indd

170 In Pursuit of the Sunbeam: A Practical Guide to Transformation from Institution to Household
“All homes have a kitchen.”
Design Principle 5: All homes have a kitchen.
The kitchen is the heart of the home - every home around the world. People everywhere relate to the fellowship and communion around food that is born and nurtured in the kitchen. We look to the kitchen as the source of sensory stimulation – sights, sounds, smells, tastes and textures – that is important to reality orientation, memory and reflection, as well as to appetite and hydration. The kitchen is a natural place for personal interaction over the preparation of the meal or the baking of special treats. Kitchens should be designed not only as a place to for preparing food, but also for gathering and socializing. One can enjoy the moment over a cup of coffee or a snack, but just sitting quietly in the familiar environment of a family kitchen can stir memories from every stage of life: as a young child experiencing mother’s baking, as a teenager with the fun of a barbeque, as a young bride with the laughs over a fallen angelfood cake, of connecting to the community by preparing a signature dessert to share with friends, as a grandfather and grand child, one baking, one licking the spoon... The obvious truth is that kitchens are necessary for preparing and serving meals, but in a home, kitchens are just as necessary between meals for building and sustaining relationships, and for nourishing the soul.
Principle 6: All homes have recognizable dimensions of privacy.
Familiar home designs provide at least four basic zones of privacy through designation of specific rooms, their location and type of access provided. These levels can be identified as private, semi-private, semi-public and public. The chart below categorizes each zone, provides examples of spaces found in a traditional home and discusses the residential patterns of behavior you might expect. It is important to remember privacy does not equal isolation. Privacy means the ability to control social interactions and establish boundaries. The environment can play a significant role in achieving this principle and, at every level of environmental change, the goal should be to recapture as many of these dimensions of home and privacy as possible.
“All homes have recognizable dimensions of privacy.”
“It is important to remember that privacy does not equal isolation. Privacy means the ability to control social interactions and establish boundaries.”