Thursday, November 28, 2019

The Curse of the Open Plan Kitchen

"Open plan kitchen design is the concept of joining the kitchen and the living room into a single area to create a continuous functional dialogue. This is no longer a trend; it's become the way of approaching kitchen design"
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  • George Ion It started i think in 1933 and was done by Wright himself, the master of American architecture.

    https://franklloydwright.org/willey-house-stories-part-1.../
    Willey House Stories Part 1 – The Open Plan Kitchen | Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation
    FRANKLLOYDWRIGHT.ORG
    Willey House Stories Part 1 – The Open Plan Kitchen | Frank Lloyd Wright…
    Willey House Stories Part 1 – The Open Plan Kitchen | Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation
  • George Ion Some beg to differ from "the way of approaching kitchen design".

    "Well, people cook in kitchens, and when they cook in kitchens, they make messes, and then, to make matters worse, if their kitchen is in full view from the rest of the house—as many today are—their mess i    s out in the open visible as they eat their meals, hang out with their families, entertain their guests, and go about their lives."

    https://www.theatlantic.com/.../the-curse-of-an.../560561/
    The Curse of an Open Floor Plan
    THEATLANTIC.COM
    The Curse of an Open Floor Plan
    The Curse of an Open Floor Plan
  • George Ion Yes, people do cook in kitchen. Some, like me, almost every day. And use the stove maybe once or twice a week.

    Even in a tiny 600 sqft (50 square meter) apartment like this, they do have giant stoves. How giant? Just measured mine. 2 ft (60 cm) wide inside. Enough to accommodate to 10 inch pizzas, two 15 pounds turkey, one small pig, one... you name it.
  • George Ion Up until yesterday i was complaining almost daily of smell of smoke. Marijuana from neighbors, i thought. No, i was wrong for years. I stuck a large plate with baking soda inside the stove and voila! No more smoke.

    High was i think from mold which i f    ound a way to get rid of i will talk later.

    So it's not only the mess but the smell some like me would be against having a functional kitchen with a large stove inside living. And a bedroom next to it with a door that is open almost all the time. With one inch walls around the stove full of mineral insulation which gets contaminated with backing and cooking fumes.
  • George Ion But wait. This is just the beginning. They came a couple of decades ago with refrigerators with hidden outer (hot) coils. Right under it. The reason still eludes me. And because they were smaller, they added a fan that blows only when compressor is on. On top of the collecting pan for de-freezing. Fan blows out through some holes in a cardboard cover (that also has the role of protecting you from ultrasound creating by the hissing freon through a valve) and pulls from under, cooling the coils. Coils are half inch above floor. You can imagine that all the dust and dirt from kitchen floor being pulled by the fan and recirculated. But wait. Behind the fridge is the plug which communicates with the inside of the wall. If the wall is outer, is full of mineral insulation.

    The flow of that fan is times bigger than any of the filters i have.

    Due to same class of architects represented by great Lloyd, namely Levy, the "inner" wall (drywall, Sheetrock, whatever) does not touch the floor. There is an "airing" opening about half inch which will not allow sulfur dioxide from decomposing calcium sulfate (drywall) to accumulate inside wall. Let it flow inside at low "not dangerous" concentrations. Kitchens usually have some vinyl cover on top of that opening (Or wall-floor joint) but that is not sealed. More stuff (insulation, sulfured paper dust from drywall, electrified mineral insulation breakage) falling by the vinyl band will get blown by the output of that fan. Other stuff like food crumbles inevitability will get inside the wall, accumulate sulfur, and who can describe all the processes that could happen inside that alien environment which is the empty walls of Levy style american current house design and then get out back at you, blown by the fan and then recirculated. Some will end in the pan for collecting de-freezing water which gets wet every 8 hours or so and turn into mold.

    But the whole process can be intensified 10 to 100 times by a modified exhaust car outside with bursts of totally unnecessary pollutants inside your breathing space. That is if you spend lots of all of your time in the "living" area like i do. Then you will wake up in the morning with something that feels like sand on your teeth. Guaranteed diabetes in ten years and who knows what else after 40 or when you're not protected by youth hormones anymore.

    Dirtiest place in hour home? Maybe not. Dirtier than this is inside "walls".

    https://www.google.com/search...:
    cleaning refrigerator coils - Google Search
    GOOGLE.COM
    cleaning refrigerator coils - Google Search
    cleaning refrigerator coils - Google Search
  • George Ion I admit i was full of rage when i wrote this. Just finished cleaning mine. I do it once a month and by far is not enough.

    I take 4 screws out of the cardboard cover in the back and tilt and lean the whole fridge in a stable position against the wall (this can be dangerous) to expose the coils under. Better done with two persons, one just to hold the fridge.

    I use a garden sprayer with a pump, sort of like a pressure washer and run one gallon of water through the coils, fan case, fan, back case. I collect the water from vynil floor with a rag and mop the floor. Collect the water from the pan with same rag. Water leaves a whitish residue in a plastic tube i use to rinse the rag. Imagine all that dust blown by the fan in your living area.

    And yes from time to time you have to also clean the can shaped pipe that allows water from de-freezing to flow in the pan because it catches dirt (food crumbles from the fridge) and mold. With a wire and a small piece of cloth.
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