bespoke kitchen design Archives - Page 2 of 2

Victorian Kitchen Design Inspired by Lanhydrock

Posted in Jun 2017

There are many Victorian kitchen designs which have inspired Artichoke projects over the last 25 years, but few really hit the mark as soundly as the National Trust’s Lanhydrock House kitchen. It is, in our view, one of the finest examples of Victorian back of house interior design and architecture in Britain.

The main kitchen at Lanhydrock house — Beautifully lit by natural light; the main kitchen at Lanhydrock house.

Originally Jacobean, the house was damaged by fire in 1881 and it was given an extensive restoration in the high Victorian style. With the UK buoyed by the successes of the industrial revolution, the newly restored, magnificent Victorian kitchen design was updated with the very latest equipment and technology for staff to cook food for the owners, their guests and other staff.

The Artichoke kitchen design team has been quietly obsessed with Lanhydrock for many years. When the opportunity arose to share our passion and interest with a client, we jumped at it, travelling down to Cornwall with him to help explain why we felt we should take inspiration from it for his bespoke Victorian kitchen design. Our initial visit was about capturing some of the detail which makes this kitchen so special.

Cast iron ovens at Lanhydrock House kitchens — The huge cast iron oven forms the centrepiece of the Victorian kitchen design. Note the recess in the background, framed with a cast iron mould

Artichokes Victorian Kitchen Designs

Much of Artichoke’s work involves designing kitchens with aesthetic links to the past. More often than not this is because we are designing kitchens into period buildings where some link to the past is a sensitive and pragmatic way to ensure the kitchen design has longevity, does not date and sits comfortably within its architectural surroundings. At the same time, we try not to let the past constrain us. After all, we are designing kitchens and practical spaces which need to be used for modern living.

In this particular Victorian kitchen design project for a country house in Hampshire, we have been exacting in our attention to the smallest details. Surveys were taken of moulds and copies of the Victorian handles have been made using the same lost wax cast brass method used at the time of Lanhydrock’s restoration.

Render of Artichoke's bespoke kitchen design — Render of Artichoke’s bespoke kitchen design.

plate rack in Victorian kitchen design — Render of Artichoke’s bespoke kitchen design.

The plate rack Artichoke has designed above the brass sink is decorative and will be used to both store plates as well as dry them. Each plate rack has a bespoke pewter drip-tray base. The main sink is made from solid brass. During the late 1800’s Victorian kitchen designs often featured metal sinks, usually made from copper or nickel alloy, a corrosion-resistant and robust lightweight material capable of standing up to the rigors of a large country house kitchen environment.

copper sink in the bakery — The copper sink in Lanhydrock’s bakery. The walls were painted blue as it was considered the colour least attractive to flies.

The Range Oven

A large cast iron range formed the centrepiece to many Victorian kitchen designs. Artichoke works regularly with Officine Gullo, a modern Italian company specialising in the design and manufacture of incredibly hard wearing cast iron kitchen ranges. The ovens are known for their build quality and distinctive period character; they fit well into many of the country house projects Artichoke designs kitchens for.

This particular oven top features a pasta cooker, four large gas burners, a French plate (used typically for sauces) and put down. A pot filler has been integrated into the back.

Officine Gullo coup de feu top — The heavy gauge cast iron Coup de Feu or French plate is an essential piece of kit in professional kitchens.

Casting the frame mould

The original moulding which surrounds the recess on Lanhydrock’s kitchen is made from cast iron, which Artichoke has replicated for this bespoke Victorian kitchen.

The moulding was cast by a foundry in Somerset and was a highly involved process. Starting with the mould frame pattern (made from timber), a reverse sand mould was made into specialist casting sand. This had tapered edges to ensure it can be removed – similar to the reason children’s beach buckets have tapers on. Molten pig iron was then poured into the mould and left to solidify and cool for 24 hours before it was shot blasted and fettled. The finished mould is very dark grey in its natural state.

Cooling in the original Kitchen

Domestic fridges were not invented until 1913, and until that point, a host of relatively creative methods were deployed to keep food cool in large country houses.

The method above, as seen in Lanhydrock’s dairy, is one such example and not one we’ve seen anywhere else. A cold water feed distributed water (from the hills above the house) around a cast iron trench system to keep dairy products cool. The dairy room uses both marble and slate to keep the dairy products and desserts cool. However, more modern cooling methods were decided upon for our client’s Victorian kitchen design with a Sub Zero refrigerator being integrated into the wall next to the cast iron range oven. We have made sure it’s introduction is discrete – it takes a central position in the kitchen but is disguised by being housed in a cabinet – a practical and neat solution.

Victorian Pull Handles

During Artichoke’s numerous visits to Lanhydrock, we surveyed the handles on the cook’s table which were copied using the traditional method of casting them in brass.

Brass pull handle for kitchen — Stage 1: Surveying one of the original kitchen handles from Lanhydrock.

Scale version of the Lanhydrock handles in timber — Stage 2: Artichoke makes a 1:1 scale version of the Lanhydrock handles in timber for the casting team to then use as a model

Completed copies of the new handle design — Stage 3: The completed copies, ready for client approval

Technically detailing the Cooks Table

Because Artichoke only designs one off projects, each is unique, so it is imperative to ensure the cabinet-making team is given the clearest possible information to make from. To do this we design each component part using a specialist 3D technical drawing package. This modern version of what used to be called ROD drawings allows us to provide our team with detailed drawings of incredible clarity, meaning that regardless of whether this is the first time the furniture has been made, they know exactly what to make and how to make it.

Cabinet maker making an island — Artichoke cabinet-maker Arthur making the Cook’s kitchen table.

Assembling the Kitchen

An important element of Artichoke’s cabinet-making work is the assembly phase in the workshop. It is the first time we get to see the kitchen come together. The assembly phase allows us to fit the appliances, cut in the butt hinges and shoot in the doors and drawer fronts into their frames “shooting in” where a cabinet maker uses a well sharpened plane to dimension a component to exactly the correct size. Because all of our kitchens are bespoke, we are making each project for the first time, and doing this work on our premises means that we can avoid undertaking it at our clients’ homes, making the final installation more efficient.

Once the fully assembled Victorian kitchen design was signed off by our Production Manager, it is disassembled and prepared for finishing.

kitchen island table — Cook’s table island with wrought iron tie bars and visible joints.

Large plate rack — The kitchen’s large plate rack, ready for the sink and surfaces.

Close up image of how the frame of the Cook’s Table is jointed into the top of the turned leg — A close up of how the frame of the Cook’s Table is jointed into the top of the turned leg. The hole allows us to pass electricity cables through it.

The finished project can be viewed by following this link

With each project, whether a kitchen or a whole house, we aim to create Britain’s future heritage, adding architectural value to our clients’ houses for their family and for future generations. We aren’t simply making joinery. We are making history.

To discuss your project, email the Artichoke team at newprojects@artichoke.co.uk or call on +44 (0)1934 745270.

Jacobean Country House Kitchen & Pantry

Posted in Sep 2016

Every so often, a kitchen space is presented to our design team that requires particularly specialist attention. In this case, a beautiful Grade II* listed Jacobean hall situated near the Peak District National Park.

The house sits beautifully in walled gardens with a perfectly symmetrical Georgian facade and wonderful views over rolling valleys and farmland. The kitchen space is large (approximately 8×7 metres) which for designers presents a challenge. Often large kitchen spaces are more difficult to design into. Added to this, the room is an unusual shape (not unexpected given the age of the house), but a challenge nonetheless. Further complications arise from various beams and supporting structure which require further investigation and structural engineering advice.

Artichoke was commissioned to undertake detailed kitchen design work on the back of our extensive 25 years experience designing into country houses. Our brief was to design a kitchen space which worked for a modern family but which was also sensitive to the architecture of the listed Jacobean interior.

Following a number of visits and investigative work by Artichoke’s team, an idea began to formulate. This involved taking advantage of the existing beams and supports to divide the kitchen up using a combination of both architectural joinery and furniture. This is not an entirely new idea; it was extensively used by the architects of grand country houses to divide up parts of the domestic back ends of their servant’s kitchen and utility spaces.

Kitchen design and development

Artichoke’s 3D visuals show how architectural joinery has been introduced to the kitchen to divide the space up. The joinery elements feature solid brass glazed framed windows to ensure light floods the room. These windows are to be made from solid brass and are moulded. They open on pivot hinges, secured with brass ball catches embedded into the oak frames.

The glass shelves within the interior hand painted furniture elements feature turned brass gallery rails supported on brass posts. The large central island is hand painted, with the colour taken directly from the main kitchen at Tyntesfield Abbey. The batterie de cuisine over the island will be in blackened steel, and the chopping block will feature brass straps (not steel as shown).

Brass detail development

The image below shows one of the unwelded frames machined from solid brass. The glass we are setting within the frame will be restoration glass which has slight imperfections which refract light, making it well suited to match ‘old fashioned’ windows throughout the rest of the building.

Close up detail showing the turned brass gallery rails mounted onto the glass shelves.

Sink and Taps

A heavyweight solid brass sink has been designed into the scullery to match detailing throughout the rest of the room.

We have chosen to use the fantastic Regulator tap from Waterworks in unlacquered brass to ensure it ages.

Lighting

Artichoke has specified these lovely simple wall lights (in antique brass) with clear reeded glass shades.

Update: 7th October 2016

A welded sample for the solid brass windows with an aged patina. Each window is calculated to be around 12kg (with glass), with double windows being around 20kg. This will affect how the joinery into which they are set is re-inforced.

14 November 2016: Ongoing project. Further updates soon!

More Case Studies of Artichoke’s work can be viewed by visiting our Profile page.

Curved Kitchen for a Round House

Posted in Dec 2015

Round houses were once all the rage (think mud huts, yurts and teepees). Houses were built in the round because they offered strength against earthquakes, strong winds and heavy snow, and because they were quick to heat and simple to roof.

These days, modern building materials and fixings offer enough strength and stability to not have to deploy round exteriors for strength, and it is unusual to see one. Not because the shape is unappealing aesthetically, but largely because the machinery that makes and shapes building materials such as steel, brick, glass, timber and stone is designed to produce it flat, square and straight. Flat, square and straight is the default setting for most building material manufacturers, so it should be of no great surprise that design and manufacture of curved furniture takes longer and ultimately costs more.

This particular house is round because it has been inspired by the circular garage carousel upon which it sits, created to store the clients car collection.

Design Challenges – Designing A Kitchen in a Round House
The project has been designed in collaboration with Mark Gillette and for it to be authentic and a design success, it was first vital that all of the curved elements of the bespoke kitchen doors were actually curved, and not faceted.

This challenge is further compounded by the fact that the curve becomes tighter the nearer to the center of the roundhouse the furniture is positioned. This means that the radius of the furniture doors in the scullery at the back of the kitchen is different (shallower) to the radius of the doors on the outside of the island (tighter).

Radius dimensions are 16.16 metres for the scullery, 15.32 for the glass splashback, 14.62 for the main kitchen furniture, 13.49 for the inside of the island and 12.09 for the outside of the island.

In addition to the varying radius dimensions, other challenges present themselves. Dishwashers and fridges have flat doors, raising the question of how you fix a curved furniture door to the face of a flat metal door? Does the hinge on the appliance throw the curved door out far enough so that it doesn’t meet adjacent doors? Hardly any of the joints meet at 90 degrees. How do you clamp these items together at an angle? Are the floor tilers using the same radius as you and will their floor radius match your plinth radius? The glass backsplash needs to be specially curved. How do you set out the kitchen at the installation stage?

Artichoke’s creative design images of the desk area with doors open and closed. The right hand side of these images show the strength of the curved doors.

Materials
The primary material chosen for this kitchen is fumed Eucalyptus, typically found in Australia, New Zealand and Spain. The material is a light brown/golden yellow in its natural state, and it is made to go a deep chocolate brown colour by fuming it (a process using ammonia that causes a reaction with the tannins in the timber).

As you can see, the timber has a wonderful ripple running through it and great care and considerable time was chosen to source a pack of veneer that was even in colour throughout and maintained its ripple across the width of the kitchen. As is often the case, we took the client to our veneer suppliers to advise and discuss the choice.

The Fumed Eucalyptus in Artichoke’s workshops before it is worked.

This video shows an Artichoke cabinet-maker bonding veneer onto one of the curved substrates using a vacuum bag-press.

Production Engineering
At Artichoke, because our kitchens are so highly bespoke, we put every completed design through a process called Production Engineering. This essentially means we are making the kitchen digitally into an accurately surveyed wire-frame model of the room. This allows us to iron out every issue on computer first before any materials are purchased.

Images show the kitchen being digitally cabinet-made into the wire frame model of the room. Once this process is complete and we are happy the kitchen works, we can use this software to produce making drawings for the cabinet-makers.

Cabinet Making
For quality control reasons, every bespoke kitchen we design is assembled at Artichoke’s workshops to ensure any issues are ironed out before we come to the installation phase. This also gives us the opportunity to ensure that all of the appliances fit perfectly and that all of the door gaps are perfect. Only then is the kitchen dis-assembled and finished in Artichoke’s high tech, air filtered finishing booths.

Individually, the curve on each door is surprisingly slight, but when compounded it becomes more pronounced.

Installation Phase
Artichoke’s workshop environment is specifically set to domestic heat and humidity levels, so moving completed furniture into a non domestic environment is a potential danger.

The installation phase is often the most risky, and we take great care to ensure that our furniture is introduced to the building at the correct stage of the build. We are particularly focussed on ensuring the relative humidity is appropriate (between 40 and 60%). If humidity levels are under, it can cause the timber in the kitchen to shrink, causing cracking, gapping and surface checking. If the humidity levels are above (which can be as a result of plasterers still working on the site), then it can encourage mould growth and buckling. Solid timber is particularly vulnerable.

The house nearing completion.

The main sink elevation.

The double doors lead to the scullery. The glass was also curved, as was the stone profile. The stone has a textured surface.

Completed Project

If you are interested in curved kitchen design and would like to discuss a project with us, please contact Andrew or Bruce on +(0)1934 745270.

Designing a Grand Kitchen Island for a Country House

Posted in Dec 2015

This case-study shows how one such grand kitchen island has evolved from a series of simple sketches to the finished article in Artichoke’s workshop.

The kitchen island has humble origins. In the days when large houses were supported by busy kitchens teeming with staff, the oak table was the workhorse of the room.

The kitchen at Middleton Park. The house was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens and his son Robert Lutyens in 1938 for the 9th Earl of Jersey. Not Used CL 12/07/1946 — The central island in the main kitchen at Middleton Park was simply a domestic table raised off the ground on blocks

Today, most domestic kitchens are used by the home-owner and not by staff. We prepare our own food, and as a result, kitchen islands tend to look less utilitarian.

Many of Artichoke’s kitchen design commissions are for large country houses where history has played its part in shaping how the house looks and runs. Often these design commissions are from the new owners who are responsible for replacing years of lost period character. As bespoke kitchen designers, it is often our responsibility to balance their wishes for period authenticity with the practical needs of a modern home.

This case-study shows how one such kitchen island has evolved from a series of simple sketches to the finished article in Artichoke’s workshop.

The brief was to design a kitchen with a period feel that met the needs of a modern family. The house is a captivating Grade II listed house set in National Trust parkland near Alderley Edge in Cheshire, with owners keen to re-introduce some high quality period detail back into the house, as well as practical modern features like a grand kitchen island.

Initial Hand Sketch

Each kitchen design project evolves in different ways, but in this case, initial ideas were roughed out on paper to gauge the feasibility and to help give the client an understanding of what can be achieved.

2D Drawings

Once the concept is proven, the general intent drawings of the grand kitchen island are prepared, showing turning detail, period moulding detail and interior layouts of the drawers. At this stage we are drawing to scale.

3D Renders

Artichoke’s design team often deploys CGI (Computer Generated Images) to explore how kitchen furniture works with the rest of the room and the architecture. The studies below show the grand kitchen island carved in oak at the centre alongside other decorative items. CGI can be extremely useful in helping clients understand how design impacts their space.

Production Engineering

Once the kitchen island design is approved by the client, our cabinet makers will make the piece in digital form first using a software package that will also calculate bills of materials, quantities of components weight of parts etc. We make every piece virtually in this way. It ensures all potential problems are ironed out before we purchase materials, and it improves efficiency for the client.

Production

Artichoke makes the finest quality kitchens that are robust enough to last for many years. To make kitchens of this quality requires the component parts to be jointed traditionally using craft base skills that have stood the test of time.

In the case of this grand kitchen island, the rail is jointed to the turned legs using dovetail joints and mortice and tenons. These traditional joints take time to make and will be unseen by the client, so some would argue that they are unnecessary. However, we know that these methods are a mark of quality and will far outlast mechanical fixings, so it’s important to include such details in the design of such a substantial piece of furniture as a grand kitchen island. We know they will never fail.

Screen shot 2015-07-06 at 14_03_20 — Dovetail joint

Screen shot 2015-07-06 at 16_05_14 — Mortice and tenon joints

Screen shot 2015-07-06 at 16_07_50 — A specially designed jig with leather protective padding clamps the rail to the leg

Artichoke cabinet maker Craig putting final adjustments to one of the island drawers

Finishing

The final phase is the finishing, and in this case the finish required is mid to late 19th century. Our Head of Finishing, Rob, used to be a well known antique restorer and has incredible skill for turning new oak into old. Like most professionals, Rob keeps his recipes a closely guarded secret.

To view the finished project and see how the grand kitchen island turned out, follow this link

24 February 2016: Project being installed.

Tag: bespoke kitchen design