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Gimme Shelter with Daniel Gehma: “Stop! It’s Only A Rental”

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Sep 272010

When traveling for business, it seems there’s often one little detail that gets overlooked. Today I had to be in Phoenix to visit a property with a client, as sort of a fact-finding mission. (“Shade” at Desert Ridge, a former Gold Nugget “Rental Apartment Community of the Year.”) It’s only a short flight over to Arizona, but the community is about a half hour drive from the airport. (Sprawl—go figure.) A rental car was necessary.

Since business has been slow for a while, I haven’t traveled a ton, especially to destinations where a rental car is required, so I guess I’ve lost my edge. I neglected to select my style of vehicle in advance. When I do, I typically select the most economical ride I can manage, including a hybrid vehicle when it’s available, which it often is. Well, on this occasion my reservations were made by others, and this is the element that slipped through the cracks.

“Ewww” was my response when the rental agent handed me the keys to a Grand Marquis. Number one, this is the exact car my dad used to drive, so that was kind of creepy; number two—it felt like the kind of government-issued land yacht that might be piloted by a character on Law & Order, with a gaping maw of a back seat ready to have a perp stuffed into it. Its trunk probably would have swallowed up a smart car. Hard to hide in one of these babies, if you know what I mean.

Well, the crew with whom I was visiting the site certainly noticed, jumped on me like it was some sort of fraternity hazing—mocking me, the erstwhile tree hugger, for transporting myself in the Mercury Valdez. (At least we had two people in it.)

But it wasn’t negative, not in the end. The only reason I got teased for driving a huge car was that I have been known for some time as the designer who walks the walk. It’s been my responsibility to be the Lorax on the projects I’ve been leading, consistently bringing the sustainable ideas to the table to try them on for size. I decided a long time ago that it would help my credibility if I were personally practicing the ideas I was pitching to my clients. They all know about my Prius, and the solar PV on my house, and, for goodness’ sake, that I schlep home the coffee grounds (and filters) from the office to be composted in my organic back yard—it just comes up in conversations. If it wasn’t for all of that, my monstrous rental would have just been chalked up to another day of doing business.

But it wasn’t. It was called out for being inconsistent with my other convictions. And that made me proud.

(Daniel Gehman is principal at Thomas Cox Architects. He can be reached at DanielG@tca-arch.com)

‘Gimme Shelter’ with Daniel Gehman: Busy’s Back

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Aug 302010

Ok, I’m gonna call it: busy is definitely back. I’m teetering right on the edge of exhaling, and it won’t take much to push me into real belief. If I’m dreaming, please don’t wake me, because I like this.

As far as I can figure, the phone started ringing in earnest about sixty days ago. At first, the work was coming in as sort of a steady trickle . . . drip, drip, drip: a combination of both completely new developments and others previously left for dead. The drips have combined and become a relatively steady flow, so much that we’ve been able to bring back some of our people who were temporarily sidelined during the economic maelstrom.

Thankfully, I’m not an analyst or a prognosticator, but if I had to make an assessment of what is motivating new life for so many multifamily and mixed-use projects, I’d say it’s some combination of more money being generally available, and the impetus to get some vertical construction underway while pricing is still at depressed levels. If a meaningful quotient of the projects we’re now looking at—especially the resurrected ones—actually break ground and get rolling, this will put pressure on the pricing, and the window will gradually creak closed. So this current environment is going to work out well for the first teams to make the leap.

Another factor may be the subtle recovery of apartment fundamentals. In what must definitely be a characteristic of “the new normal,” improvement in this case is defined as a leveling off or cessation of the decline in rents and occupancies. This encouragement, however modest, may be enough to ignite a latent intention to build already brought near the flash point by the “available money/construction sale” scenario described above. Whichever it is, I’ll take it.

Finally, it is encouraging to witness the amount of “possibility thinking” I see going on right now. We have re-visited many projects, which have that “designed at the peak of a bubble” flavor—just a little too much with inflated optimism—that are now seeking an obtainable paradigm. Some are attempting to push the constricting envelope of building and fire codes to get just a little more into package that works with a less dense construction type. In other words, I’m seeing a new enthusiasm, albeit need-driven, to imagine a better mousetrap.

What a joy to be in the last half of 2010, a year I’m sure we’ll all be glad to have behind us. Meanwhile, time to pop another Red Bull and get back to the drawing board.

(Daniel Gehman is principal at Thomas Cox Architects. He can be reached at DanielG@tca-arch.com)

“Gimme Shelter” with Daniel Gehman: Nobody Walks In LA

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Aug 032010

Well, to be fair, what I really mean is nobody jaywalks in Los Angeles. Seriously. My conviction surrounding this issue stems from the day my colleague was ticketed to the tune of about a hundred bucks for jaywalking. Mind you, this was not for casually wandering across the street mid-block, this was for walking against the flashing orange hand at an intersection. Not the solid orange hand, the flashing orange hand.

I was in Manhattan about two weeks ago, and it pretty much took a full 24 hours for me to understand I wasn’t in the city of angels anymore. Initially, I waited like a good soldier at each intersection for the light to flash the “all systems go” white walking guy. And the blocks are really small, have I mentioned that?

Pretty soon I began to notice that people were breezing by me as if it were nothing at all to cross the street regardless of what the pedestrian light said. “Wow,” I thought, “these folks are really brazen.” Really, at the end of the day, the stop lights for pedestrians were suggestions, at best.

Fortunately for me, on my first evening in New York, I had dinner with some locals. I explained my dilemma with the cross walks, and, probably without meaning to, they gave me that “Oh, you poor naïf” look. The succinct explanation offered to me: “Daniel, this is New York. Pedestrians rule. You look both ways, and if there are no cars, you cross. No big deal.”

The next day, I watched for a while, and it was absolutely true. Emboldened by this revelation, I pretty soon tried my first crossing against the flashing hand. Wow—on the 30-ft. wide, one-way streets, it was not a big deal at all. In fact, it was kind of exhilarating—I felt freed to pursue my own goals, as long as I wasn’t threatened by a speeding vehicle.

This works, of course, because so many of the streets in Manhattan are really narrow. Seriously, by comparison, even the typical street in downtown LA is like a thruway—the distance to cross is so great, and the cars are moving so fast, do you really want to take your life in your hands? I have been trained, it is clear, that the car is king, and I need to take my rightful place in the divine order of things.

And so it is. It’s LA; cars rule, peds drool. Will it always be thus? I don’t know. One Thursday a month, in the evening, the emerging gallery district along Spring street comes alive with tens of thousands (I suppose) hipsters out to sample the fare from the food trucks and cruise the galleries. Temporarily the pattern is reversed, and downtown adopts a New York state of mind. It’s a glorious thing.

Maybe as downtown LA continues to emerge, we should have a lot more one-way streets, and generally narrow half of them by making the sidewalks wider and more inviting. In NYC, the heavy traffic is grouped to bigger streets about 10 blocks apart, as far as I can tell. Maybe we need a little more of that.

(Daniel Gehman is principal at Thomas Cox Architects. He can be reached at DanielG@tca-arch.com)

“Gimme Shelter” with Daniel Gehman: Let Me Feed You

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Jul 262010

Ok, so I have a new goal. By the time I’m 55, my home will generate enough electricity to not only re-charge my electric vehicle, but also to sell the excess back to my local utility. Please understand that I’m well on my way already—there’s a photovoltaic system on my roof that was designed to provide about 85 percent of my annual demand. Why stop at 85 percent? Well, at the time, the theory went that since any energy generated at my place in excess of what I could use would flow back into the grid—from where my utility company could essentially sell it to my neighbors—there was no financial motive to produce more than I could use.

In the three years my system has been operating, this is pretty much how it has performed. Then an interesting phenomenon occurred. This spring, my wife, who operates a home-based business, was away for several months. In the first 30 days, my energy consumption matched, almost to the kilowatt-hour, the amount produced, resulting in a zero power bill. This happened again in the next month. In the third month, that meter must really have been spinning backwards, because I posted a credit! This became quite a motivator—sport almost—and I tried to double down on my conservation efforts to see how long I could stay in the black.

This week in Los Angeles, the City Council agreed to consider a feed-in tariff program for the Department of Water and Power. If approved, it could foment a large move into “distributed infrastructure,” which is very much a harbinger of the future. Roofs of buildings, large and small, could be retrofitted with solar arrays that generate many more watts than the facilities need, with the overage being sold back to DWP. In the cases of large warehouses with low power demand, this could add a nice little punch to the bottom line. It will help stimulate “green” business and manufacturing, too, and will inevitably push us closer to a massive paradigm shift.\

Expect the utilities to squeal. After all, this will cut into their revenue stream. However, the potential of credit back for the PV systems will make the cost of their installation defensible for many more people, even some single family homeowners.

Like me. If DWP goes for this, our other California energy providers will follow. I have already reduced my electric bill dramatically; I would love to eliminate it completely, and have it instead become a modest revenue stream for me. (It probably won’t hurt re-sale value, either.) There’s 4.5 years left to accomplish this goal. Let’s get cracking!

(Daniel Gehman is principal at Thomas Cox Architects. He can be reached at DanielG@tca-arch.com)

‘The Essential Kitchen’ with Kevin Henry: Induction Cooking…I have seen the future and it is cool!

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Jun 222010

Kevin Henry

Today…

The laws of nature will be broken.

Matter as we know it will be altered.

Time will have no relevance.

The past is hot.

The future is COOL!”

Not since our ancestors squatted around an open fire, cooking the catch of the day of the day on a stick over an open flame has there been such a leap in cooking technology. With today’s modern kitchen consuming as much as 30 percent to 40 percent of household energy, the magnetic induction cook-top uses 90 percent less energy than that of a conventional gas or electric cook top, making it the most energy efficient form of cooking on the market today.

"Nothing is too wonderful to be true."- Michael Faraday 1831

The principle of magnetic induction was discovered in 1831 by Michael Faraday, a British physicist who laid the foundation to many of today’s common technologies. Faraday found that the electromotive force produced around a closed path is proportional to the rate of change of the magnetic flux through any surface bounded by that path. In other words, a magnetic induction cook-top uses electromagnetic energy to heat the cooking vessel itself, without generating heat on the surface of the cook top. Compared to a traditional gas or electric cooking surface, magnetic induction is faster, safer, cooler and a more efficient form of cooking.

“Nothing is too wonderful to be true.” Michael Faraday 1831

The first patent for an induction cooker was filed in 1900, but the idea was never fully realized until Frigidaire created a prototype for a traveling road show showcasing the kitchen of the future.

The first real production induction cook-top was launched by Westinghouse in the 1970’s, but production ceased when the company was sold in 1975.

From here, development of induction cooking moved from the U.S. to Europe, where induction cooking was developed for the commercial market. Induction cooking was first introduced to the great kitchens of Europe’s leading hotels and restaurants as a way to reduce energy consumption and extreme temperatures, while at the same time allowing for the quick and safe preparation of food without the need for open flames and time consuming pre-heating of pots and pans.

"Nothing is too wonderful to be true."-Michael Faraday 1831

Today, adapted for residential use, the magnetic induction cook-top uses electromagnetic energy to heat the cooking utensil itself. When the unit is turned on, the induction coils produce a high frequency, alternating magnetic field, much like a radio wave, which flows through the cookware quickly and evenly, stimulating the iron molecules in the cookware to move back and forth rapidly, causing the molecules to collide, thus creating friction, which in turn creates heat to cook. Unlike traditional cooking surfaces that heat up and stay hot long after the meal has been prepared, the black glass-ceramic surface of the Induction-Top stays cool to the touch as it is unaffected by the magnetic field.

As with any new technology, the question of health and safety always comes up in regard to the effect that magnetic induction has on the human body. The answer is simple…none! The energy transmitted from a magnetic induction cook top is not considered a safety hazard according to most scientists and engineers. The radiofrequency radiation that is transmitted from an induction cook-top is less than those encountered during every day interaction with common household appliances.

The magnetic fields that are created during use are safer than electric fields. Electric fields interact with the water in a person’s body, which magnetic fields do not do.

The reason is simple; the water molecule is a polar molecule with an electrically positive end and an electrically negative end.

A water molecule within an electric field will tend to align with the field and when the field is oscillated, the water molecule will oscillate as well. This is how a microwave oven pops popcorn. Magnetic fields, on the other hand, go relatively unnoticed by water molecules or any other molecule in a body. So not only is induction cooking the most energy efficient form of cooking, I would have to say that it is the safest as well.

In closing, magnetic induction cooking is safe to use, easy to clean, quick to heat up as well as to cool down and most important, and energy efficient. It would be safe to say that in any other culture, this technology would be mistaken for magic.

The Benefits of Induction Cooking:

Because energy is directly transferred within the pan, induction cooking is extremely fast …even faster than gas.
Induction is much safer than gas or other electric cooking surfaces since there is no open flame, red-hot coil or other radiant heat source to burn or scorch if left unattended. No contact…No heat.
With no grates or grease catch to worry about, clean up is a breeze. Just use a damp cloth and wipe over the easy-to-clean surface.
Almost no ambient heat is produced since all the heat is being generated in the pan itself. This means a much cooler kitchen to work within.
Induction cooking is far more energy-efficient than gas or traditional electric cooking. The induction Cook-Top delivers 90 percent of the energy that it uses to the pan! Gas on the other hand delivers only 55 percent to the pan and traditional electric about 65 percent. In addition, when you remove the vessel from the induction-cooking surface, the cooktop immediately goes into standby mode, which uses almost no energy whatsoever.
Unlike a gas burner or electrical stove, the induction cooktop is incapable of producing heat on its own; only until a pan is placed on top of it does it generate a magnetic field that excites the magnetic molecules in the pan which creates instant, precise and very controllable heat.

(Kevin Henry is a designer, writer and speaker with over 25 years of experience in the kitchen industry. Henry has been behind the success of such brands as Snaidero, Poliform/Varenna, Küppersbusch, ALNO in North America and Bazzeo Earth Friendly Kitchens. Currently, he is the president and creative director at Group42, a design + marketing collective dedicated to redefining the boundaries of the modern kitchen. He can be reached at kmhenry@group42.net)

‘The Essential Kitchen’ with Kevin Henry: Is it ever wrong to do the right thing?

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Jun 022010

Almost 35 years ago, while still living a post-hippie lifestyle, I attended my first Earth Day in Los Angeles. I was working at one of the first 24 hour gas stations in California, where gas was 25 cents a gallon. A couple of bucks would fill the tank of my, mint condition, 1955 VW Bug, almost to the brim.

I was invited to attend the day in the park by a young woman who wrote for an ecological magazine, a “commie rag”, as my father would say. She would come in late at night to get gas and we would talk about movies, politics and the world around us. Her passion and main train of thought was about the environment and her involvement in the upcoming Earth Day festival. At the time, Earth Day had the overtones of a “love-in” of the sixties with music and speeches, but instead of the war in Vietnam, the direction had shifted to the environment.

The focus of Earth Day in 1974 was about the quality of our air and water as well as the use of pesticides in farming and toxic waste being dumped in the ocean. And on that sunny spring Saturday in the park, with the sun shining down, out of a clear blue sky, global warming or the thought of climate change was far from the minds of this eclectic group of people, holding hands and singing along with Joni Mitchell’s, 70’s hit and anthem of the fledgling environmentalist movement, Big Yellow Taxi, one of the most prophetic songs ever to be written.

During the day’s event of music and speeches, my friend invited me to the podium to say a few words during an open “mic” period in between sets. I remember my stomach feeling like it was tied in a knot, as I had never spoken in front of a large group before. A light breeze blew through my shoulder length hair and I can still feel the way the sun played upon my face. I don’t remember much of what I said that day, a blessing of time I think, other than these few words, “the future is deeply rooted in the actions we take today”, and from that moment forward I become an environmentalist.

Now, forty years after the start of Earth Day, the movement is under attack from all sides, challenging and dismissing years of recorded data, attacking the credibility of thought-leaders, scientists and engineers, but the worst part is that the confidence of the American consumer has been shaken and they have begun to question an idea that had touched their lives.

Simple things like recycling their trash or driving a fuel efficient car or purchasing energy star appliances or changing out every light bulb in the house for compact-florescence ones, began feel silly as if they were the butt of a secret joke. It all became very clear for me one evening as I sat at the kitchen table, helping my 7 year old son with his Earth Science home work, when he asked me “what if all these things we do around the house, don’t change anything?” POW!…right between the eyes by one of my own. It was like being asked if I believed in GOD. I sat dumbfounded for a minute or two and looking him straight in the eyes I said…”is it ever wrong to do the right thing?

I explained to him that we, as individuals can make a difference, by the choices we make and the actions we take, we can make a lasting impact on the world around us. So, yes…the things we do around the house to lower our carbon-footprint, like taking shorter showers or changing out light bulbs or compositing or bring our own bags to the market…do make a difference.

So even if climate change or global warming were not an issue, I ask, is it wrong to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and seek alternative energy resource? Is it wrong to want a more energy efficient automobiles or home appliances? Is it wrong to conserve and protect our limited natural resources? Is it wrong to want to make a difference in the world around us? No, it is not wrong to want and expect these things, but we have to take action and we cannot wait for the government or a group or committee for the answers, we, as individuals, hold the power to make a difference and by the choices we make and the actions we take, we can alter the course of life on this planet, now and for generations to come.

Editor’s Note: Catch the Student Housing Wave

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Apr 262010

On March 31, just days after signing his controversial healthcare legislation, President Obama advanced another piece of his domestic agenda. In what he has called “one of the most significant investments in higher education since the G.I. Bill,” the President signed The Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010, which includes legislation to revamp the federal student loan program. “We will provide the support necessary for you to complete college and meet a new goal,” President Obama pledged to the American public. “By 2020, America will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world.” The new law will help student borrowers manage their loan debt by capping repayments at 10 percent of their discretionary income, so it will be easier for students to repay loans after graduation.

Students reportedly will also benefit from the elimination of the fees paid to private banks for serving as intermediaries in the loan process. The Pell Grant Program will be extended, and the new law will invest $2 billion in community colleges over the next four years to provide education and career training programs to workers eligible for trade adjustment aid after dislocation in their industries. These measures are designed to make higher education more affordable—whether they’ll create additional opportunities for student housing investors, developers and property managers remains to be seen. But, the picture is already rosy for this multifamily niche. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, this year will see 18.6 million students enroll in college, up slightly from 18.4 million in 2009. Enrollment is expected to increase to 19.2 million by 2013, and 20 million by 2017. And The New York Times reports that applications to elite private colleges rose again this academic year despite economic constraints on many families.

This month’s cover story, “Catch the Student Housing Wave” (page 20 of the magazine), includes a look at the differences between student and market-rate housing. Some investors see student housing rents as virtually guaranteed by parents, so as demand rises along with enrollment, there is the opportunity for excellent financial returns. On the down side, everyone clears out in the summer and the leasing effort can be daunting to newcomers, but consider that student housing tends to rent at a premium. A four-bedroom apartment with four student residents each paying $500 a month can yield as much as 30 percent more than the apartment norm in that region. Donna Preiss, president, the Preiss Company reports, “In the past three months, we have been 93 percent leased for the fall.” The trend of fewer students living on campus also bodes well for the student housing niche. University of Texas, for example, has an enrollment of about 50,000 but has room for only 6,500 students in campus dorms. And when’s the last time you heard of a student housing community in foreclosure? Fans of the student housing niche say it’s nearly recession-proof… knock on wood.

Diana Mosher

Editor-in-Chief
dmosher@multi-housingnews.com

‘Gimme Shelter’ with Daniel Gehman: Halftime

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Apr 202010

OK, so it’s like we’re all in the locker room, right, and, say, the other team has a lead of at least one, and maybe two touchdowns. We’ve just received some combination of dress down and build up by our fearless leader and mentor/coach, and we’re all chomping to get back on the field to see if we can’t rally to pull this one off.

Our industry is such a mutually dependent thing. Though each of us on a development team may carry the ball for a different stretch of the field, no individual would really have a salient function without the rest of the huddle. So we all keep scratching, digging, looking, waiting, and imagining how great it will be when we get to play again.

This week I heard a bit of news from one of my clients, a large national apartment REIT, that they had recently “green-lighted” a number of projects that had been slumbering. Hooray! (I hope it’s one or two of mine!) Together with a perceivable increase of the number of calls from both new and existing clients about possible deals, it certainly seems like the fog may be starting to lift, one pixel at a time.

It’s got to be a tough patch for the decision makers. Think of the revenue stream I could generate with a crystal ball at this moment! The conventional wisdom, at least in rental apartment circles, is that nobody wants to wait too long to bring new product to market lest they miss a couple of years of hefty run-ups in rent. Naturally, this sentiment sounds absurd at the moment, but when you consider a typical high-density, podium-style project with around 200 units is going to take conservatively two years to build—even if the permits are in hand—the time frame starts to feel a bit more relevant. So we’re stalled or still moving slightly in reverse at the moment, how long does that really take to turn around?

Everyone knows it’s cheaper at the moment to buy an existing, performing asset than to build new from the ground up. And yet, at best, these established properties changing hand can be fluffed and buffed, which is appropriate for the market, but they are not now, and can never be, the new thing on the block, for which there will always be an interest. What are the right signs that will encourage the decision makers to pull the trigger and start the next new things?

Perhaps rent stabilization would be an element. But what’s the delay, I wonder, between a leveling off of rents and the beginning of a new acceleration cycle? Again, I wish I knew.

What nobody wants in the dreaded ‘double-dip’ recession, where, just as things seem to be moving in the right direction, they stall in mid-air and begin a sloppy second sludge into backward movement. May it never be!

Watch the consumers. My financial advisor told me once that the reason recessions end is because folks grow tired of being super thrifty, and just go out and start spending again. So, basically, the downturns end due to boredom. Would only that were the case we see being played out in front of us.

I don’t know. The Dow’s over 11K today; last month the economy added jobs, oh—and did anybody mention it’s an election year?

Put me in coach, I’m ready to play.

(Daniel Gehman is principal at Thomas Cox Architects. He can be reached at DanielG@tca-arch.com)

‘The Essential Kitchen’ with Kevin Henry: Look Ma, No Wires

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Apr 052010

Imagine a kitchen where you will no longer have to wander about like a desert nomad with your blender or toaster in hand searching for an oasis of power or at least a clear space near a free outlet.

The idea of wireless electricity was first conceived by legendary inventor, Nikola Tesla in the early 1900’s. His idea was to build giant transmission towers across the US that would emit an electrical frequency that your home appliance or light bulb would receive and be powered, much in the same way as a radio picks up a broadcast signal. After a major legal battle that was finally settled in the Supreme Court on the side of GE and Thomas Edison, Tesla and his idea of free electricity faded into obscurity.

But all is not lost, Sony Japan announced that it has developed a highly efficient wireless power transfer systems that elements the use of cables or cords for small appliances. The new system can transfer wirelessly 60w of electrical energy over a distance of nearly 24” with 80 percent efficiency. This new technology is based on magnetic resonance, where two or more devices can transfer energy when using the same resonant frequencies.

The idea requires embedding a line-connected power transmitter into a counter-top, table top or wall, which then transmits power to an adapted appliance placed near or on the transmitter without the need for a cord between the transmitting or receiving elements.

Once developed to its full potential, you would be able to place any future portable household appliance, such as a toaster, blender, coffee maker or can-opener anywhere in the kitchen you would like to work without the need of a power-cord, plug or socket.

One of the greatest benefits of this new technology will be safety with the near elimination for electric shock. Gone will be the days of socket guards and curious hands and just think of the fun of making margaritas poolside with no need for plug. The possibilities are endless, and the modern kitchen as we know it, will continue to open up and expand its borders as new technology and applications continue to emerge.

Now Mr. Tesla…about that “free” electricity idea?

‘The Essential Kitchen’ with Kevin Henry: For the Love of Cooking

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Mar 042010

I love to cook and enjoy the process of preparation, selecting the ingredients, laying out my tools, cooking my meal and then to finally serve it to my family and guests. As with most chefs, professional or amateur, I nibble my way throughout the undertaking and have little room to actually sit and eat with my guests, but to sit and talk, to eat and drink and just commune with one another is its own reward

I am glad to say that there has been a renascence in kitchen design over the last few years, maybe it’s because of the current economic times we live in and people are staying home more and eating meals around the family table has once more taken center stage. What has changed, or maybe a better word would be, evolved, is the democratization of the family kitchen. This once private domain of the feminine world has now given way to a new social order that reflects the world that we live in. Everyone is welcomed, if not expected to participate in the ritual of preparation.

And with this increased activity and additional bodies in a high-traffic ballet of fire, boiling water and sharp pointy things…we find that the assembly-line kitchen of the past, with its uniform horizon of sink, dishwasher, cook-top, oven and refrigerator, forever locked in its limited one-person “work-triangle”, must now give way to a new way of thinking.

Appliances once dictated the form and flow of the kitchen. Today, they have all been replaced by the individual/s and the task and then the appliances and the space needed to fulfill the task. With a variety of people and activities in this enclosed environment, we must create a fluid, interactive, multifunctional arena, where tools and materials are close at hand and within a given task boundary.

Much like selling toilet paper, the primary use of the product is seldom addressed. The same has gone for modern kitchen design. Over the past several years, the collective thought of modern kitchen design was to create the “illusion of order.” This was accomplished by hiding the true function of the kitchen. By hiding the food, the waste and the appliances, we create the illusion of productivity and efficiency by hiding the process.

With cooking returned to the primary function, the kitchen must be efficient to be productive, an environment that is conducive to the task at hand. To this end we have reached out to the commercial kitchen to better understand the true meaning of efficiency, a world that clearly defines the boundaries of form and function and where the poetry of chaos is the rule of order. The commercial kitchen is designed around a menagerie of players, each with a tack or goal to fulfill, all working independently, all working to the same conclusion and all working in perfect harmony.