Kitchen Design Ergonomics
As you consider what you want your kitchen space to accomplish and how you’d visualize it as a day to day workspace, you’ll start running into questions about what works and what doesn’t. How wide an aisle do I need between an island and a counter? How high should the highest shelves be? When is a sink too deep or too shallow? These questions come up constantly while designing anything for human use. Fortunately the science of ergonomics which studies the range of human movement and our physical interaction with the world has defined many of these measurements. Based on the average range of movement of a typical human, ergonomics offers the kitchen designer a set of guidelines for setting heights, widths and other measurements to ensure safety and comfort in your kitchen.
It is important to stick with these guidelines so that your kitchen will work for many users. Even more important, all manufactured kitchen cabinetry, appliances and accessories use these guidelines to create standard sizes. This means that the recycling center insert you purchase from one source will fit into a standard cabinet from another source. It also means that carpenters, plumbers, electricians and other craftspeople will, unless told otherwise, place fixtures, cabinets and outlets at standard heights and locations.
Sticking to ergonomic guidelines will save you money in a number of ways. Non-standard items must be custom crafted at considerable higher cost. Work surfaces located at awkward heights can lead to back problems and repetitive motion injuries. When selling your home, as noted earlier, odd sized or non-standard work spaces can reduce the value of your house.
More than anything other consideration, ergonomically correct design will result in a kitchen that is much more convenient and comfortable to use. When you work or socialize with others in the spaces you won’t get in each other’s way while performing different tasks and you’ll be able to spend long periods cooking and cleaning up with less physical stress and strain.
