The kitchen of the future has a long past. At world fairs and trade shows going back more than a century, crowds have been tantalized with slick visions of the extraordinary ways we’d be preparing foods in the coming decades. In particular, notes Ruth Oldenziel, a professor of American and European history at the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands, and coeditor of the book Cold War Kitchen, futuristic kitchens have long been used by marketers to excite us about new technologies. In the 1900s, it was the magic of natural-gas stoves, then in the 1920s and 1930s, the spread of electric and telephone utilities, then refrigeration in the 1940s, on through microwave ovens in the 1950s and even nuclear power in the Atomic Age kitchen (to say nothing of today’s quesadilla presses and single-serving coffeemakers). “In every generation, the kitchen of the future is a sort of passport photo for innovation,” says Oldenziel.
But lost in all the fuss over electromechanical, thermal, and radiative marvels, according to Oldenziel, was much discussion about changes in the food itself, or in the people cooking and eating in these kitchens-to-come. The futuristic kitchen had the same mom cooking the same macaroni and cheese for the same dad and two kids who were gathered for dinner at the kitchen table—the “futuristic” part was in the machines and energy that allowed mom to cook and clean up quickly and easily.
And that’s what distinguishes some of today’s visions of the kitchen of the future. Yes, the technological breakthroughs are part of the picture, but they’re not the drivers anymore. Today’s kitchen designers and innovators are focused on who we’re going to be, and what that means for food and the main place in which we cook and often consume it.
We Are How We Eat (and Cook)
In 2010, the lifestyle-design megabrand Ikea commissioned London-based Future Poll, the research division of the Future Laboratory think tank, to report on societal changes over the next three decades that could affect how consumers use the kitchen. Among the report’s conclusions: More of the world’s expanding population will live in urban areas, creating greater demand for smaller, multipurpose kitchen spaces; a pressing need for efficiency will lead to new food-preparation technologies; and an ever-growing dependence on digital connectedness will vastly accelerate the trend to integrate entertainment and social networks into everything that’s done in the kitchen, turning the space into a media center. At the same time, an increasing desire to live in villagelike communities rather than sprawling suburbs will promote the wide-scale creation of private and local food gardens and farms. A rising concern with wellness will make kitchens centers of nutrition instead of junk food bazaars—with a heightened focus on eating more farm-fresh vegetables and fruits. Finally, growing environmental consciousness will lead people to embrace green, sustainable kitchens, along with outdoor cooking and eating spaces with all the conveniences of indoor kitchens.
Many similar future kitchen trends are predicted by Ray Kinoshita Mann, an architecture professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Kinoshita Mann and her design company, RK Studio are developing a visionary five-home Amherst neighborhood, called the Solar Courtyard Homes Project, a self-funded development intended to bring ultra-green design and a shared, sustainable, permaculture landscape to the market at an all-in price of about $600,000 per home. The kitchen in the nearly complete first home is on the small side by today’s standards. But guided by the rising need for multipurpose kitchen spaces, this kitchen is designed to allow several people to comfortably and efficiently cook together, or even use the space to work on projects unrelated to cooking and eating. Long, narrow counters, including four stove burners arranged side by side rather than back to front; an extra-wide double sink; doorless cabinets that allow easier access to ingredients, tools, and dinnerware; and a large island with a flat unaccessorized top make the room useful for multiple cooks as well as nonfood projects. To extend the kitchen area, the adjoining living space is raised more than a foot so that people sitting in it can be at nearly eye level with those standing in the kitchen, and the island slides on tracks all the way into that area. Every surface in the kitchen is height-adjustable (in some cases just by loosening a few knobs) to accommodate children and those in wheelchairs. “I tried to avoid the conventional kitchen command-center architecture that’s really only good for one person doing all the cooking,” says Kinoshita Mann. “I wanted several people to be able to work in the kitchen without getting in each other’s way, or having to dodge cabinet doors.”
To address a growing focus on gardens, sustainability, and wellness, Kinoshita Mann added many other features. There’s a “wet room” next to the kitchen with an extra-large counter and sink and a draining floor, so that fresh, unpackaged produce pulled right out of the garden or from a local farm can be sprayed down and hung from overhead racks to dry. And the kitchen and living area wrap around a small indoor courtyard with sliding glass walls and ceiling, all of which can be opened or adjusted to bring the outside indoors and to assist in heating or cooling the house (adjustable ventilation pipes provide additional temperature control). “The idea wasn’t to radically redesign the kitchen but to make a lot of subtle changes in the home that affect how we perceive and use the cooking and eating area as our needs evolve,” says Kinoshita Mann.
No Such Thing as Too Many Cooks…or Computers
Similar motivations are influencing home design at Taylor Morrison, a builder that has helped define the image of the future kitchen for many Americans, through a partnership with Disney, Microsoft, and HP that resulted in the Innoventions Dream Home exhibit at Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California. Amy Haywood-Rino, who heads up sales and marketing at Taylor Morrison’s Houston’s division, explains that growing economic pressures and an aging population will make it increasingly common to find as many as four generations living under the same roof. The need to accommodate many people who will likely to want to cook and eat in different ways, along with a shrinking focus on privacy, led Taylor Morrison to design most of its homes with open-floor plans that defy the conventional notion of a single, well-defined kitchen. Not only is the line between the kitchen and other living spaces indistinct, but the homes sometimes include ultra-compact satellite kitchens to supplement a more spacious main kitchen area. “These smaller kitchens can give a separate space to an elderly family member or a kid living at home after college,” says Haywood-Rino. “Or they can just be utility spaces to get some of the hard cooking work done so that the kitchen can be kept less cluttered for other activities.”
In the Dream Home exhibit, technology is front and center, via a range of computerized home functions—from temperature control to door locks to lighting to music—all adjustable with a remote control. And in the real-world homes that Taylor Morrison builds, this technology has become standard: Temperature, security, lighting, and more can be controlled in the home via remote or from anywhere in the world using a smartphone or an iPad (an iPad comes with the price of the home, which starts at $150,000). “Now we’re looking at ways to control the kitchen oven and other appliances remotely,” says Haywood-Rino. “That way you can get a head start on dinner while you’re still at work.”
Gleaming, Flashy, and Virtual
Emerging digital technology will have an enormous impact in kitchens of the future, according to Peter Bocko, chief technology officer for Corning Glass Technologies, makers of electronics displays, optical fiber, and other high-tech glass products. “We’ll be entering an age of ubiquitous displays,” he says. Ongoing research and development in breakthrough glass technology allows the embedding of information screens in tough glass sheets that can conform to various shapes. The result: Kitchen work surfaces, from counters to cabinets, will become places to display information and media. “We’re going to move away from the idea of our relying on just a smartphone or laptop or TV screen to get entertainment and information, and toward environments where we can get it from whatever surface is around us when we need it.” As we cook, says Bocko, we’ll have recipes displayed on our counters, a video of a cooking demonstration on a cabinet, a live video chat with a friend who can offer tips running on the wall, and email displaying on the sink backsplash. Meanwhile, the kids can turn the top of the island into a large display for homework and a quick video consultation with a teacher. Later in the evening, all of these displays could allow the kitchen to become an entertainment and social-networking center.
Kitchen lighting is undergoing a transformation as well, says Daniel Tripp, a product manager at the U.S. subsidiary of German high-end kitchen hardware and fixture manufacturer Hafele. Rows of tiny LED lights can be embedded in any surface so that countertops, backsplashes, and cabinets can be set to glow at any brightness or in any color. Task and mood lighting in the kitchen can then be customized to a variety of moods or functions, and increase visibility into normally hidden spaces such as bottom cabinets. Lights can be programmed to address the different needs of all the various people using the future kitchen, with extra-bright lighting for the elderly, soothing lighting for midnight snackers, colorful lights for toddlers, or even full-spectrum white light for those subject to depression in the winter. Tiny embedded sensors and cameras, Tripp adds, could serve to track what food you’re running out of in the refrigerator, or to function as triggers to automatically open cabinet doors or trash bins when you reach toward them with your hands full.
Meet the Jetsons
Also coming to kitchens: robots. A company called Willow Garage in Menlo Park, California, already sells a home robot that can cook a complete breakfast and perform various other household chores. Right now the robot, known as Personal Robot 2 (PR2), costs $400,000, and is intended only for robotics researchers, notes Willow CEO Steve Cousins. “But the price will come down, and its functionality will improve to the point where people will be willing to pay for it,” he says. We may well see affordable robots able to help out with the cooking and cleaning within 20 years. In the meantime, we’ll see more and more small-scale robotic devices capable of performing a single, relatively simple chore, such as stirring and monitoring the temperature of a dish that’s cooking on the stove, or wheeling a tray full of food around to guests. RoboDynamics, in Santa Monica, is already selling a $3,000 tray-toting robot called Luna.
And yes, appliances are still an important part of the kitchen of the future. At today’s leading edge are “speed ovens” from GE, Miele, Electrolux, and others (at prices starting around $1,800) that combine bursts of heat and microwave energy in ever-more-sophisticated ways to turn out food that’s indistinguishable from food prepared in conventional ovens, but in one-third the time. “It zaps and bakes a fabulous, juicy bird in 20 minutes,” says Kinoshita Mann, who is putting a Miele version (the Europa MasterChef 60cm Speed Oven) in her kitchen, where she’s test-driving many of the appliances and concepts for her clients’ kitchens. Researchers are already looking at technologies that can enlist intense pressures or even laser beams to further reduce cooking times without compromising food quality. And as one sign of how seriously appliance makers already take the growth of consumer interest in wellness, GE is at pains to stress that its latest line of refrigerators boasts chilling drawers and twin evaporators to keep produce fresh, plus hot and cold water filters that supposedly remove 98 percent of the impurities often found in tap water.
But for all the new appliances and improvements coming into the kitchen of the future, Kinoshita Mann is most excited—if a bit nervous—about one appliance she’s leaving out of her own kitchen. “All the food garbage is going to go into a small, built-in composting machine for the garden,” she says. “It can process 5 pounds of stuff a day, including meat. No garbage disposal—gulp.”
No one ever said the future isn’t a little scary.
David H. Freedman is a science and technology journalist and author, who writes for The Atlantic, The New York Times, and Discover magazine, for which he writes the Impatient Futurist column. His most recent book is Wrong: Why Experts Keep Failing Us. This is his first article for Gourmet Live.