The Research On The Design Of Integrated Kitchen System For Small-sized Flats

In today's China, the cities' high housing price is a relatively prominent social issue, which makes a lot of working-class residents, especially young people, tend to buy small-sized flats instead of big-sized ones. That also makes commercial apartments, white-collar apartments, mini-apartments and a series of small-sized flats very popular for leasing and sales. The main feature of these small-sized flats can be regarded as 'the sparrow may be small, but fully-equipped'. And most of them are equipped with small space kitchens. Now most of the kitchens' design concepts, products and equipments are made for big and medium-sized kitchens, which can be not so suitable for small-sized ones. Small-sized kitchens should be designed according to their own characteristics and to the needs of the residences.With the study and analysis on the spatial characteristics of small-sized flats, supporting facilities of the kitchens and some other important factors required, and also with the research on people's behavior patterns, the needs of small-sized-flats residences, the laws of the kitchen operation, the operator psychology and the latest kitchen design concepts, the author try to gradually build the design principles and methods for integrated kitchen system in small-sized flats in this article. So, the main content of this article contains the following aspects:With the review of the historical evolution of Western and Chinese kitchen's design, and with the study on the development of the kitchens in our country, some suggestions about the kitchen design at this stage have been given.With the extension of the concept of integer kitchen design concepts, principles and methods, the basic design concepts of the integrated kitchen system for small- sized flats have been given.With the research on small-sized kitchen's features and users' behavior, the furniture, electrical equipments and facilities, as well as kitchen environmental and other elements have been analyzed in order to make recommendations on the kitchen design and to build up the design principles and methods for the various elements of small-sized integrated kitchen system.The main purpose of this article is to improve the design concept for small-sized kitchens and to provide theoretical guidance for the specific designs, through the research on the design methods and design principles of the kitchen system. And with this article, the author also hopes designers and companies can pay more attention to the small-sized-flats residences and their living conditions and can design and produce more products for their needs.