andrewducker: (Default)
andrewducker ([personal profile] andrewducker) wrote2021-09-08 12:00 pm

Interesting Links for 08-09-2021

[personal profile] anna_wing 2021-09-09 11:28 am (UTC)(link)
I found the kitchen post a bit confusing, because I didn't realise it was just a blog post until I was halfway through and thinking, "was the editor drunk?"

Really, an efficiently designed kitchen is a kitchen that is easy to cook in, and is a good kitchen to have if you can, regardless of whether nasty people liked them too. "Sleek surfaces" are not more morally questionable than non-sleek ones and are mostly easier to clean and maintain (I like stainless steel myself). A well-fitted kitchen will in fact have space for the chopping boards (one each for meat, bread, and everything else), the cleaning materials, and a rail near the sink to hang the tea-towel. I find cosmetic wall panels a bit twee, and I really like freezers, but tastes differ.

I do regret not building in a corner pull-out section, those are both cool and a much better use of space. Maybe in future.
adrian_turtle: (Default)

[personal profile] adrian_turtle 2021-09-10 03:14 am (UTC)(link)
Yeah, I think the editor must have been drunk. It looks like there are 3 essays in there: one about 20th century kitchen architecture (related to efficient use of space, the same kind of engineering that brought us time-and-motion studies of assembly lines.) Also related to being ABLE to design a kitchen, instead of squeezing plumbing into an old building, and caring about the comfort of the user. You're right that many of the design details they came up with are really useful, though some of them have become so familiar you don't notice them unless they're missing. (Like a refrigerator where the door opens the wrong way.)

The essay about how many times "labor-saving devices" changed expectations so the overall amount of labor didn't go down that much is really disconnected. Sure, they're both about the history of kitchen work. I see how they COULD be connected. Are there kinds of labor-saving design that don't have this effect?

And the essay about kitchens that are for display, not for cooking, is something else again. I think that would be an interesting thing to write about, but she barely touched on it. Lots of people do very little cooking. If you ask them, they'd tell you of COURSE they don't have underpaid servants preparing their meals. Their meal prep is outsourced to commercial kitchens, whether they get takeout or buy semi-prepared food from groceries.

And another essay

[personal profile] anna_wing 2021-09-10 11:08 am (UTC)(link)
Exactly!

Are there kinds of labor-saving design that don't have this effect?

I can think of washing-machines (I am old enough to remember my grandmother's housekeeper washing clothes with a washboard), slow-cookers, and most recently, micro-fibre cloths and swiffers.