Research On Modular Design Of Kitchen Facilities Based On The Family Life Cycle

The emotional and intellectual stages you pass through from childhood to your retirement years as a member of a family are called the family life cycle. McGoldrick and Carter have designed a classification of critical, fundamental family life-cycle stages of American middle-class families in the beginning of the 21st century (1999,2). Their classification table lists six stages of the family life cycle:single young adults; the new couple; Families with young children; Families with adolescents; Launching children and moving on; Families in later life. Various stages in family life resulting in different buying patterns. It takes into account changes in family structure and behavior accompanying progression from birth to death. Consequently, the family life cycle is the indicator of household consumption behavior.First of all, the thesis makes an investigation of each stage of cities family, which analyzes the anticipation and the demand at different stages. With the summary of the investigation and the theories of modular design, this thesis propounds the method, which about the modularity in design of kitchen facilities from the perspective of the family life cycle. Based on the analysis of the kitchen system, the method subdivides kitchen facilities system into smaller modules that can be independently created and then used in different systems to drive multiple functionalities. According to the fluctuation, the arrangement and the combination of the modules, it can meet the demand at each stage. The final part is the empirical of modularity kitchen facilities design. It establishes a database for common module and a variety of combinations of modular production.With the theory and method of Modular design, the thesis makes the exploration between family life cycle and kitchen facilities, it really wants to provide a new mode of kitchen facilities design.