Clare Cousins Architects
The biennial Eurocucina fair in Milan sets the bar for the latest kitchen design and style that is trending for 2019. Here’s what some of the world’s best brands are cooking up.
1. The anti-kitchen trend
Kitchens looked decidedly un-kitcheny this year, with cabinets so stylish it was easy to forget they were designed for storage, appliances so sleek they disappeared before our eyes, and so many touchable textures we thought we were in the living or dining room.
More and more, designers are giving us the ability to hide or camouflage parts of the kitchen at our own choosing. There was a big push towards creating concealed work areas, like the Inside System by Ernestomeda and Logica Celata by Valcucine, which boast sliding doors that close and hide the entire kitchen structure. Paradoxically, open storage that blurs the line between kitchen and living space was still very much on trend.
At Arrital rows of grainy timber shelving made a case for arranging and displaying prized crockery as you would your favourite books.
Meanwhile, designers extended the notion of the breakfast bar with dining tables built onto islands, executed beautifully at Veneta Cucine.
The look is less kitchen, more luxe. Exquisite finishes and surfaces star.
2. Black kitchens are back
This year and beyond will see the all-white kitchen take a back seat to dark, dramatic shades of black, punctuated by moody greys and light khaki. Deeper hues hide a multitude of scuff marks and sins (making them far easier to maintain and keep clean), and black has the power to make any space look instantly sleeker and more modern.
Not just reserved for countertops and cabinetry, black hues dominated kitchen appliances at Eurocucina. Case in point: ASKO launched their much-loved ‘Craft’ oven in black stainless steel. “Black steel reflects the light, giving the products a sober, shimmering and exclusive feel,” says Jon Carlehed, head of design at ASKO. “It adapts to the lighting conditions and surrounding colours, and because of this, the products can be integrated in an equally stylish way, both in a modern, industrial-style kitchen as well as in a rural, richly decorated kitchen.”
Modular kitchens are coming, designed to be rearranged daily to suit your needs
3. Custom designed kitchens
Flexibility in the kitchen once meant a butcher’s block on wheels. But with renters on the rise and homes getting smaller, there’s an increasing demand for multifunctional, flexible kitchens. Boffi used Eurocucina to launch its newest kitchen by Piero Lissoni, ‘Combine’, which puts the design completely in the hands of the user. Rather like a modular sofa configuration, mono blocks and worktops in different shapes and sizes mean you can personalise your working space to how it suits you, while extractable tables let you create fixed or extendable dining zones to suit your guests.
Also leading the trend is Alpes Inox, whose ‘Liberi in Cucina’ deconstructs the kitchen into a series of customisable, freestanding modules that offer total design freedom. Pick a function – food prep, washing, cooking, storage – and then customise to your heart’s content.
4. The wellbeing trend
The world’s obsession with wellness has officially come to the kitchen, with designers using technology to empower us to become better, healthier and safer cooks. Poliform’s Infinity Modular System features overhead storage with photo LED lighting for growing herbs.
There was also a big move this year towards cleaner kitchen air, with brands like Miele, Siemens and Fisher & Paykel all launching new and improved extractor hoods. Others implemented the kind of food storage technology once reserved for the restaurant industry. Electrolux and Smeg both launched versions of a blast chiller: technology that cools cooked dishes super quickly in a boon for food safety. Electrolux debuted their innovative Visual Garden, a refrigerator that lights up to show you the produce inside via a transparent window pane. Their goal? To eliminate food waste and help people lead healthier lives.
Our favourite finds
Ingenious creations filled every corner of the fair, from Asko’s dishwasher – with the largest loading capacity in the world – to Kartell’s dining table-cum-induction cooktop for a convenient cuppa. And then there were these three…
(left) Beko’s new Split&Cook lets you cook at two different temperatures simultaneously | (centre) ‘Sicily is My Love’, a collaboration between Smeg and Dolce & Gabbana | (right) Fisher & Paykel’s iconic DishDrawer has a cool new feature – knock once to start and pause a cycle.
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