When people have to live with a kitchen design or renovation for decades, they tend to take their time making decisions on style and features. Home furnishing preferences can move at a glacial pace.
A friend once asked me how to select an architect for her kitchen addition? I told her to find an architect who cooks and bakes, and she would get an architect who understood her needs in the kitchen layout, features and appointments.
IKEA recently explained how their METOD Kitchen System has been developed from years of painstaking research. Their goal is to achieve ‘democratic design’ with products that will work in homes whether they are located in Beijing China, Madrid Spain or Topeka Kansas USA. Metod consist of 1,100 different components, distilled into cheap, green, and easily shipped package units. IKEA will spend 5 years developing a single kitchen. IKEA avoids buying prefabricated solutions from outside sources, including the lighting systems to illuminate drawers.
My thanks to Jens Hansegard and his article in the Wall Street Journal last October.