Adapting a Kitchen to Human Dimensions and Movement
A kitchen is above all a place where work is done. Making that work efficient is the overall goal of good kitchen design. Yet, in most instances kitchen designs do not consider the physical characteristics of the people using the kitchen. Almost all kitchens are arranged and sized to the average person - countertops are a standard 36" above the finished floor, wall cabinets are 18" above the countertops, countertops are 25" deep, and so on. Kitchen

Yet, these standards actually fit almost no one. Who is exactly average? Very few people. Moreover, people do not move around the same way. Physical limitations may restrict reach and range of motion. Bending, stooping and reaching are required to operate and do work in the typical kitchen. If you do not possess, for whatever reason, the full range of motion required, or if your range of motion is extraordinary, some adaptation may be needed to make your kitchen work best for you.

Even if you do not have limitations, how you move within the kitchen, access space for food and utensils, prepare and serve meals, and clean up are unique to you, and accommodating them is a primary criteria in good kitchen design. Are you a make-it-from-scratch cook or a fast-food microwave specialist? Or something in between. The kind of use you make of your kitchen must influence how it is arranged. Basic ergonomic design requirements dictate that you be able to reach everything you need, see what you are doing and move safely about the kitchen space in an efficient, economical manner.

Obviously, a kitchen built for a short person will not fit a tall person, and vice-versa. A customer in a wheel chair needs extensive modifications to make a kitchen work for him or her. The counter must be set at a height that keeps the user's back straight and upper torso erect. Otherwise fatigue sets in quickly. A cook top or range should be at a level that allows you to look down into pots and pans. Tipping pans to peer at the contents is dangerous, and removing hot pans from the range is only slightly less so. Cook tops are almost always set even with countertops, but there no good reason for this practice. It is merely traditional. It is often more convenient and safer to have the cooking surface slightly below the counter top. This is particularly true if children cook.

Careful planning of storage, appliance locations, lighting systems, along with ergonomics, results in the perfect fit between you and your kitchen. Without it the kitchen may meet every design criteria, yet be awkward or even dangerous for you to use.

The owners of this particular kitchen are both taller than average. One of them had a bad back. This precluded him from a lot of bending and stooping. The average counter height of 36" was too low for proper posture. Ideally, the counter top should at a height that permits a user to place his hands flat on the top with his forearms at a 45-degree angle. This is the most comfortable working posture for most people. In this case, a counter top height of 38" was required.

We did not want the base cabinets to appear "leggy" as would happen if the entire 2" was added to the bottom of the cases. So we raised the cases 1" by installing them on strips of plywood, and added a 1" spacer to the top of the cases which is concealed by moulding and by letting the counter top hang over a bit more than normal. Using these methods, the extra height of the base cabinets was hidden from all but the most astute observer. Only a careful examination reveals they are actually taller than normal. (The refrigerator gives it away, however. Notice in the photo above how much closer to the floor the bottom of the refrigerator is compared to the bottom of the adjoining base cabinet.)

Roll-out shelves A tall person hates to bend and stoop (actually everyone hates to bend and stoop, but tall people seem to hate it more), and a tall person with a bad back is incapable of doing much of it. This meant the extensive use of pullout shelves and baskets in lower cabinets for better access to items stored in those cabinets. It also meant we could make better use of upper cabinets for storage since tall people tend to have more reach. Rather than the standard 12" deep cabinets, we specified slightly deeper 13" cases. It's surprising how much more storage that extra inch provides. Instead of mounting the upper cabinets the standard 18" above the counter top, we lowered them to 15". This made the contents of the wall cabinets even more accessible. (For more information on upper cabinet features and placement, see What we Can Learn from Commercial Kitchens.)

The work triangle (consisting of range, microwave, sink and refrigerator) was kept small to minimize the amount of walking required in typical food preparation. It contains a double sink with disposal, refrigerator and an easy-clean cook top, all within easy reach (a maximum of three steps) of each other. A microwave sits next to the cooktop (on the other side of the island in the photo above), just far enough from the cooktop that two people can use them without being in each other's way. Another good location for the microwave would have been suspended from the wall cabinets to the right of the sink.

The space we had to work with was limited and the kitchen is rather small. To make it seem larger we used a light color palette. The cabinets are natural (unstained) maple. This light wood has a muted figure and makes strong, beautiful cabinets. A sealer was used to bring out what little grain figure was available, but otherwise the natural color of the wood was left alone. The protective coating is a factory-applied catalyzed conversion varnish. This finish does not yellow over time ensuring the color of the cabinets will always stay like new. We also used lights in display alcoves to give the room more depth, making it seem larger. This technique is surprisingly effective. (Learn other ways of making a small space seem larger.)

This kitchen was windowless. The sole source of natural light was a window on the other side of the breakfast area. We had no opportunity to bring in natural light using a skylight or light tube because of the bathroom above the kitchen on the second floor. Consequently we had to rely on artificial lighting alone for adequate illumination.

General lighting recessed in the ceiling and task lighting under cabinets ensure that there is plenty of illumination. The lamps are "natural daylight" except the alcove lighting which is standard incandescent. Dimmer controls adjust each of three separate lighting systems: general lighting, task lighting, and lighting for the display alcoves. If we were doing this kitchen again today, we would probably add some indirect "cove" lighting on top of the wall cabinets to illuminate the ceiling over the cabinets. (See: Designing Efficient and Effective Kitchen Lighting.) Otherwise it's hard to force light back into the corners of the room. This would be on the general lighting circuit.

The counter top is a composite material that looks like marble. It looks enough like the actual stone that only a close examination reveals that it is really a composite solid surfacing material -- and a relatively inexpensive one at that. (Learn about the various counter top materials available for your kitchen at New and Traditional Countertop Choices.)

The flooring, an oversize, off-white Mexican-made ceramic tile, closely matches the figure and color of the countertops -- so close, in fact, that unless they are held side-by-side it is difficult to see a difference. The oversize tiles reduce the number of grout lines. To keep grout looking new, we used a medium brown-gray shade (the manufacturer calls it "taupe") that complements the rest of the kitchen and helps hide any eventual staining; and a latex additive to reduce cracking and separation. We laid the tile before placing the center island. The island is attached to the floor with a mastic rather than screws through holes in the tile so that in a future kitchen remodeling, the island could be removed leaving only a gap of one tile. This tile was omitted to run electrical service to the island. It could be replaced at any time with one of the several extra tiles we left with the owners for that purpose. Meantime, there is a use for this extra tile. See Tips and Tricks.

A kitchen that's a perfect fit can be achieved when plenty of time is taken to plan thoroughly for kitchen tasks designed around the ergonomics its users. Body Friendly Design: Kitchen Ergonomics
The word "Ergonomics" comes from two Greek words "ergon", meaning work, and "nomos" meaning "laws". Today, however, the word is used to describe the science of "designing the environment to fit the person, not forcing the person to fit the environment."

What is Ergonomics?
Ergonomics covers all aspects of the human-environment relationship, from the physical stresses body motion places on joints, muscles, nerves, tendons, bones and the like, to environmental factors which can effect hearing, vision, and general comfort and health.

Ergonomics has been around in one form or another for centuries, but really got a boost during World War II when the military developed the notion not of just new weapons but new "weapons systems" that permitted man/machine teams to work together more efficiently.

The knowledge gained designing weapons systems carried over to kitchens when in 1944 the President of the University of Illinois at Urbana ordered the formation of the Small Homes Council to research housing issues. By war's end, the Council had already published a number of research findings on kitchen organization, eventually developing the famous "kitchen work triangle" that became the cornerstone of kitchen design for the next half century. It endures today as part of the Kitchen Design Rules published by the National Kitchen and Bath Association which spell out the main guidelines for efficient kitchen design. But once these universal guidelines had been published and accepted, ergonomic design was not given much more consideration for several decades.

Then in the 1970s the need to design workable spaces for the handicapped brought it to the forefront again. Ergonomics is very popular now. People may not know exactly what it means, but know that an ergonomic chair, knife handle, or spatula is likely to be more comfortable and often better looking. So, since ergonomics sells, everything under the sun is suddenly "ergonomic". Kitchens should be, but seldom are.

The Kitchen as Workplace
The kitchen — unlike most other rooms in the home — is a workplace. The job of preparing and serving meals gets done there. Making that environment fit you is a most critical factor in your satisfaction with your kitchen. Ergonomics aims at making this work more efficient, faster, more pleasant, and less fatiguing by improving the interface between the human body and the things we need to interact with to get work done.

The movement abilities of the human body are the fixed parts of the equation. We are not going to alter the body to fit the environment. So to make work more efficient, we have to alter the environment to fit human movement. We want to minimize movement by eliminating unnecessary steps and make the kitchen usable by all of the individuals in a household. Every aspect of kitchen design is being given a new, hard look, from countertop and toilet heights to the optimum placement of the microwave and dishwasher and the best depth of the kitchen sink.

Flexible Workspaces . . .
What kitchen designers aim for in applying ergonomics to a kitchen is a flexible, adaptable space in which work can be done with minimum wasted motion and maximum efficiency. Minimum wasted motion not only speeds the work, but makes it less fatiguing. Design a kitchen where you'll spend less energy and time bending, walking, twisting, lifting and cleaning, and you'll have more of more energy and time left for cooking and enjoying. Efficient, accessible flatware storage.

Adaptability simply means that the space can be used comfortably and efficiently by different users with differing capabilities. Are you tall, short? How far can you reach? If you cannot comfortably reach upper cabinets, then you do not want to store most frequently used items there. If you cannot bend to reach lower cabinets, extensive pullouts may be a good option in your kitchen. Your eyesight is a factor in planning illumination. Studies have shown that a person in his or her 50s with good eyesight still needs 100% more light to read by than that same person in his or her 20s.

. . . Adaptable to Every User
Kitchens should work for every user, not just the primary user, and certainly not just a hypothetical "average user". A knee space under a sink or a cooktop helps make these areas available to someone in a wheelchair. When used with a stool, the same knee space allows an able-bodied person to sit while cooking or washing up. This helps avoid fatigue and back strain. The same knee space can be used as out-of-the-way parking for a serving cart, which provides not only a convenient roll-around lowered work surface useful for a myriad of tasks but also a way to set or clear a table in one trip rather than many. A knee space under a sink or a cooktop helps make these areas available to someone in a wheelchair. When used with a stool, the same knee space allows an able-bodied person to sit while cooking or washing up.

Safety at the Forefront
Kitchens are inherently dangerous places containing electricity and water in close proximity, sharp objects, flame and hot surfaces. There is almost unlimited potential for accidents. Kitchens are one of the most frequent sources of fire in the home and are second only to bathrooms as places in which home accidents occur. Yet, as complex as kitchens have become, accidents and injuries are decreasing, in no small part due to better design. And while ergonomic design is not going to get rid of all of the many causes of accidents, it can help eliminate those caused by unnecessary hazards in the environment.

Analyzing Kitchen Work
Because kitchens are places where work is done, the first step in every good kitchen design is determining what work is done and the process or processes by which it is done. In industry this kind of study is known as work-flow analysis. Since each cook does it a bit differently, the work that occurs in your kitchen is inherently personal. But while it may sound very complicated, work-flow analysis is really nothing more than asking obvious questions. Who will work here, and what work will be done? What motions will be required to accomplish each task? Will you stand or sit while doing these things, and if so, where? What step will follow the initial step in the process, and where will you go for that second step — for the third step? The process should be orderly so you have everything you need right at hand for each step and you do not have to criss-cross the kitchen repeatedly to get the work done. The ultimate objective is to make sure every bit of kitchen organization and structure – from the physical layout to specific appliance locations to the level of lighting at each task area – helps keep the work safe and efficient.

The Right Counter Height
Fit the countertop height to the actual user, not a hypothetical "average" user. For determining the height of work surfaces, we don't care as much about the height of the user as we do about the distance of his or her elbows from the floor. The elbow is the critical hinge of all lower arm movement — and it's mostly lower arm movement that does the work in a kitchen.

If your elbow is too high above the work surface, you tend to lean forward to put your elbows back in an optimal relation to the countertop. If your elbow is too close to the work surface you tend to either step or lean back to being the elbows back into the correct position. In either case, the back suffers. If after preparing Thanksgiving dinner your lower back is killing you, your countertops are too low. If the pain is in your upper back and shoulders, they are too high. For most people, the standard countertop height of 36" is too low. It was set in the 1940s when people were on average shorter than they are today — and it was probably too low even then. For most cooks the optimum height is between 37 and 39 inches, and we have made countertops as high as 40 inches.

Your base counter height is found when, with palms on the counter-top, your arms rest at a 45 degree angle to the countertop. For chopping, slicing and most food assembly, this is the optimum height. But different work surface heights better fit other kitchen tasks.
Storage Ergonomics
The object of ergonomic storage design is to locate storage so that the things you need to accomplish a task are right at hand — not somewhere across the kitchen and out of reach. Storage design involves three core principles:

Checkmark Things should be stored where they are first used,

Checkmark The more frequently an object is used, the closer it should be to where the task is performed, and

Checkmark Nothing should be stored behind or underneath anything else.

Point of Use Storage Every item should be stored at its point of first use. The bowls you use to prepare food should be stored where food is prepared, not across the kitchen with the other bowls. We tend to store items with like items: bowls with bowls, knives with knives, platters with platters. But that's not how we use them. Store things where you use them, it saves a lot of walking. If you fill pan and pots for cooking at the food preparation center, pots and pans need to be stored where food is prepared, not where it will ultimately be cooked. The prep area is the point of first use.

Storage Zones Store the things you use most often closest to where they will be used. Anyplace you can reach without moving anything but your arm is your primary storage zone. The most frequently used items go there. A often-used knife should be in a block on or above the counter, not hidden away in a drawer. Fetching a knife from a drawer is a multi-motion process: (1) open the drawer, (2) locate the knife, (3) remove the knife, (4) close the drawer. You may have to step away from the drawer to open it which adds yet more motion to the process.

Size storage to the things being stored so that no item is behind or beneath another. Ideally, primary storage requires just one motion to locate and retrieve an often-used object. Clearly we cannot have everything we might need cluttering the counter space, but we can have things we use most often right at hand — and everything else close by — with just a little planning. The primary storage zone is generally in an area between 30" and 60" high for most people and extends laterally about two feet right and left from the center of your body. This zone includes (1) the top two drawers of the base cabinet, (2) the counter top itself, (3) the wall behind the counter top (hang utensils there), and (4) the two lower shelves of the upper cabinet.

Store the next most frequently used items in your secondary zone: (1) The top shelf of the upper cabinet, in the area below the second drawer of the base cabinet and (3) on the lower shelves of adjacent upper cabinets. This is the area you can reach by stretching, bending or stooping without taking a step.

Everything else is tertiary storage — storage you have to walk to or you cannot reach without a step-stool. Only those things used very infrequently should be stored in this zone.

Single Layer Storage Storage should be sized so that whatever is stored is in one layer — all out in front. In practice that is very difficult to achieve when you only have so much room for your kitchen, but it is at least an ideal to strive for.

Turn a shallow pantry cabinet on end and make it a pullout and you have an optimum storage arrangement with everything visible from one side or the other. A drawer should contain just a single layer of things. To hold one layer of silverware, for example, a 3-1/2" or 4" drawer is all the depth you need. For most other utensils, 5" to 7" is adequate. A 9" drawer will hold most bowls and colanders, and a 12" drawer the majority of your pots, pans and lids (on a lid tray).

Shelving should follow the same pattern — all items in one, single layer. You store dry foods, for example, in four general forms; cans, bottles, boxes and bags. Cans are seldom larger than 8" in diameter or taller than 8". Can storage, then, is 8" deep and 9" high. Building a pantry 8" deep is a little impractical, but it is possible, for example, to heavy up the hinges and hang a can storage rack on the pantry door. Store bottles on the other door on shelves about 12" apart.

Boxes need 14" of depth and bags not more than 16" — so that's the depth of the ideal pantry. But who has enough spare wall for a wide, shallow pantry? So we compromise and use a pull-out pantry — essentially a wide shallow pantry turned on edge then set into a cabinet. It is excellent storage when is kept to a maximum of 18"-24" wide. At this width every item in the pantry is in view from one side or the other

Where storing some items behind others is unavoidable, use lazy susans and pullouts where possible to bring items in back to the front.

For more information on storage principles, please read Mise-en-Place: What We Can Learn About Kitchen Design from Commercial Kitchens.

Ergonomic Appliances
Appliance designers have gone a long way with ergonomic appliance design, but still have a way to go. Dishwashers and microwaves are still the most problematic appliances, with ovens and refrigerators following in close step. Photo Courtesy Miele. Elevated Dishwasher This up-scale dishwasher is designed to be installed at a height that is easier on the back. Non-upscale dish­washers can also be in­stalled this way, and where possible, should be.

Dishwasher The dishwasher is an ergonomic disaster. It's much too hard to use. You have to bend and stoop a lot to load and unload it. You have to spend a lot of time opening and closing the top tray to reach the bottom tray. The bottom-hinged door gets in the way of people moving around the kitchen. It is not a very user-friendly appliance. Very recently dishwasher manufacturers have started putting dishwashers in drawers, a much more back-friendly design. Still expensive and, rumor has it, prone to breakdown, these are at least heading in the right direction.

Oven It's pretty clear that the folks who decided to put the oven below the rangetop never tried to lift a turkey into our out of one. Ideally the oven door should be waist high, not hugging the floor. A single wall-oven set at about 32" from the floor (not the usual 36") is the ideal arrangement. If you really need a double wall oven then expect one or both of the ovens to be either too high or too low. The trade off, of course, is cost. You can expect a cooktop/wall oven combination to cost at least twice as much as a range with built-in oven.

Refrigerator The top freezer refrigerator was never an ergonomic success. It puts the most used part of the refrigerator down by the floor where a lot of stooping and bending is required to use it. Bottom freezer units are better. The main part of the refrigerator is placed between waist and shoulder, which is where it should be. But again, bottom-freezer refrigerators are usually more costly that the traditional top freezer or side-by-side models. So there is a price for this ergonomic efficiency. It's a trade off. But the slight extra cost is almost always justified in a refrigerator which is the appliance used most often in a typical kitchen. For more on cost vs. ergonomic benefits, see Kitchen Remodeling on the Cheap.

Microwave Photo Courtesy Sharp. Undercounter microwave in a drawer from Sharp The microwave has always been the red-headed step child of kitchen design. There is just no good place to put one. On-counter models take up too much valuable countertop space. Under-cabinet units must be small to fit under wall cabinets, ending up too small to be fully useful. Over-range microwave-vent units are too high for safe use by all but the tallest — and who is their right mind ever thought that retrieving a bowl full of steaming hot spaghetti sauce from a microwave nearly over your head while reaching over a pot of boiling spaghetti was a really smart idea?

The best solution so far is the undercounter pull-out microwave drawer by Sharp. The appliance provides superb access by placing the microwave right at the most convenient height. It can even be installed under a cooktop. It's not all roses, however. The microwave does not include a turntable — a rather astonishing oversight, and because it is the first one, the price is easily about double that of a premium microwave, but coming down. Kudos to Sharp for a long-awaited and much-needed improvement in microwave placement — from a copier company. Where were you, GE? Up-swinging door are the best door economically. In either open or closed position, the doors are completely out of the way.

Wall Cabinet Woes
Upper kitchen cabinets (also called "wall cabinets") are somewhat controversial. Many designers don't like them and won't use them. If your kitchen is very small, it will indeed look larger without upper cabinets. Getting along without wall cabinets, however, means your remaining storage has to do double duty. Learn more at Off the Wall Kitchens - Living Without Upper Cabinets.

The problem with upper cabinets is that they have doors. Doors are a nuisance to efficient kitchen work. They keep you from just reaching into the cabinet. You first have to step back to get out of the way, then open the door, then get the item, then close the door again. One solution is just to abandon doors, turning the upper cabinets into what are in effect open shelves. But doors do have a purpose. They hide all of the clutter and keep dust and grease from getting into the cabinet.

Perhaps the best doors from an ergonomic point of view are those that open upward. Upswing doors are rare in this country; much more common in Europe and Asia. By swinging up, they are out of the way, and they can be left open for easy access until the task at hand is done. Side-hinged doors, by far the most common door type and the only one available in most factory cabinet lines, with modern European or invisible hinges cannot be left open because they stick straight out and are perfectly positioned to always be in the way. There are special invisible hinges available that allow the door the lie flat against the cabinet, but these are large, klutzy, and expensive.

Conclusion
While there are good general design rules governing kitchen design, they are just that —general— and need to be modified to fit you. Adapting your kitchen to you is a large part of the design process. If your kitchen does not fit your physical characteristics and your work style, it may be handsome and fresh, but it will not be comfortable, and you won't be happy. If we can design that help special kitchen for you, please contact us. We would be glad to assist.

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