Arclinea

'Technology at the service of the everyday' for Arclinea. After the professional kitchen of 1998 and the ritual kitchen of 2002 comes the kitchen design which incorporates both - the 'metamorphic kitchen' (year 2006). A concept associated with the most contemporary aspiration for environmental value: the kitchen varies according to needs and mutates from static to dynamic.
From a functional point of view, the metamorphic kitchen is one which allows the product to be used in different ways.
From a substance point of view, this is a kitchen that plays a truly leading role in the home: the focal point of appeal and liveability. This is thanks to hidden technology whose benefits make enjoyment easy, every day.

"My 25 years working with Arclinea have been dedicated to experimentation with the concept of the kitchen, starting with fine-tuning of a programme that functioned perfectly from a technologically sophisticated point of view and then, over the years, gradually studying the various types of kitchens. From a space for socialising to the professional island, from the compact single unit to the functional microcosm, each different interpretation offers a living solution that blends perfectly with its surroundings, the ideal expression of changes in today’s homes. As an architect, when faced with planning a new concept, I tend to start with the interior design. I therefore worked towards definition of a programme of practicable living solutions. This catalogue brings together the results of all these years spent analysing, studying and engineering every detail of every kind of kitchen. It is a framework that reworks available space and tailors a wide-ranging selection of alternatives for interiors.

I believe that the kitchen, together with the bathroom, is the area of the home that, more than any other, has undergone huge transformation in contemporary living culture. It is a room equipped with the most sophisticated technologies, designed with the same attention dedicated to an industrial product, but at the same time it is a versatile area for socialising that changes with people’s lives and marks the evolution of habits and customs.

There is no doubt that over recent years the kitchen has taken on a central role in interior design. It used to be purely functional, tailored to suit the activities of a well-oiled machine. In time, however, it has gained a broader significance, it has become the heart of domestic socialising: a welcoming, busy, energetic, open, familiar and flexible place. A room that takes on different guises, depending on the time of day, number of people, occasion or mood. It is no longer a showroom, a status symbol, an indicator of abundance and optimism. It now welcomes the pleasure of cooking and of translating food preparation into a creative experience, a place for empathy.

Reflection on the pleasure of cooking, experimenting and creating, has led us to introduce functional islands “stolen” from professional kitchens, and believe in a vision where sophisticated cuisine inaugurates a new life at home, with new rituals and rhythms. Smaller living spaces, a result of the increased economic and commercial value of property, have also led me to design smaller kitchens in terms of components. In today’s cities the diffusion of apartment blocks, has in fact brought about the need to offer smaller solutions that deliver the same performance.

Perfectly functional kitchens that fit in beautifully and adapt to every household need. This downsizing is however accompanied by integration of the functional and technical elements of the living space, so that a device like the hood, for example, is absorbed by the surrounding room until it becomes camouflaged as part of the ceiling. Some storage elements, meanwhile, such as the Closet – a closed walk-in unit – help with organisation not only of strictly kitchen-related activities, but also, more in general, of the architectonic interiors”.