Kitchens With An Attitude

British designer and restaurateur Terence Conran says of the kitchen, "Where once it was barely considered a room, it is now felt by many to be quite the most important space in the whole house – a place where we are sustained both physically and mentally. Although it is primarily functional, a place in which to cook, it is also, in practice, an informal living room."

In many Filipino homes, the kitchen is still hidden from the main areas of the house and neither is it for entertaining guests – God forbid that your guests wander into the dirty kitchen where the floor is untiled (you can always say you’re in the industrial look phase) and the wooden cabinets are unfinished. Only in recent years has the kitchen been used for purposes other than cooking.

The kitchen’s position has changed as well-planned spaces that can double in function are becoming the norm. Some kitchens are integrated into the dining room, occupying one large space instead of it being consigned to the back of the house. Today’s homeowners are looking at the kitchen as an integral part of family life, where mom can take out her laptop and work, where dad can tinker with his tools, kids can play, and guests can hang out.

So why has the kitchen been elevated to the position of the family room? Terence Conran attributes this to the shift of "a woman’s place" from the kitchen to outside the house, her own place of work. "When the kitchen stopped being a prison and became a place to which all members of the family gravitated, it made way for the equally pervasive and equally cliché concept of the kitchen as ‘the heart of the home.’"

For such a room, homeowners are now turning to well-established brands for both kitchen furniture and appliances. Focus Global offers all kitchen components in one showroom: Sub-Zero and Wolf from America and SieMatic from Germany.

Sub-Zero manufactures the most beautiful refrigerators and wine storage units. Its sister company Wolf (which Sub-Zero acquired three years ago) makes cooking instruments such as stovetops, ovens and microwave ovens. SieMatic does kitchen systems that range from farmhouse style to ultra modern design.

"The kitchen is a statement," says Sub-Zero’s Kurtis J. Hargens, vice president for sales, The Westye Group. "In Asia, the kitchen is becoming the focal point of the home. In the US, even people who don’t cook have to have the best of the best. Years after, you open their ovens and the care guide is still sitting there."

Volker Betsch, managing director of SieMatic Far East Office, agrees, and adds that as people start enjoying the aesthetic of their kitchen, they are also inspired to actually use it. "So they start cooking at home for the first time. They invite friends and enjoy an evening in the kitchen."

Kitchens To Die For

Where once there were just one or two looks for the kitchen, there are now hundreds of designs and thousands of color combinations.

A family-owned company now in its third generation, SieMatic is not a new brand in the country. It’s been here since 1995 with a different local partner, but Betsch says it’s the first time they have a proper setup. "The company was founded in 1929 and from the beginning concentrated on high-end kitchen furniture. Through the years, it’s been a leader in kitchen design and innovation. We are in more than 50 countries and are the biggest company in the high-end segment worldwide."

"Does a good kitchen have to look like a kitchen?" SieMatic asks. The answer is no. It can look like a living room with cooking appliances or a kitchen with living room furniture.

SieMatic systems are flexible. Homeowners can combine cabinetry, shelves, worktops, materials and colors, whatever the shape or style of their kitchen. Cabinet doors come in glass, aluminum, wood; worktops come in sate, beech wood, corian, granite, stone and, according to Betsch, the trend is toward limestone with natural etching. "It’s not anymore the cold design as in the last few years with aluminum, which is still there but is now combined with warm colors."

One of the most popular lines is the SieMatic 6006 (yes, it’s at Focus Global’s showroom). Volker Betsch says the line was first introduced in 1960 and became one of the company’s most successful. "When it was first released, it had the first integrated strip handle, which means there were no visible handles. It also carried the ‘60s pastel colors."

This series emphasizes a clean, modern look – no prominent ornamental features. Rather, function is the primary concern. Betsch shows what’s inside the cabinets: Storage space without corners. "Even if you clean it regularly, dust tends to accumulate in the corners."

The 6006 series has been awarded numerous design awards including the Good Design Award of the Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design, the if Award of the Industrie Forum Design Hannover, and the Red Dot Award of the Design Zentrum Nordrhein-Westfalen.

"Each kitchen is tailor-made because each customer has a different taste in color and style, and has different needs. We have 30 different door styles and hundreds of color combinations. We sit together with the customer and discuss the perfect solutions. It all starts with the configuration. You have to know how people work in the kitchen. Do they store plates in the kitchen or put them somewhere else?"

Luxury Is In The Details

Focus Global has five designers trained by SieMatic in Germany, Bangkok and Manila. They could help clients, their architects or decorators find the right kitchen system.

What’s cool about SieMatic is that it understands the need for lots of storage space – and intelligent storage space at that. In the last decade, sliding drawer design has changed radically. They can now carry heavier load of up to 40 kilograms and have flexibility so you can design them with dividing bars any way you want. They are also now deeper, from 60 to 70 centimeters, so you can stack up canned goods, dinnerware or pots and pans.

The top drawers are designed for cutlery and small kitchen items. One of the things that really impressed us is SieMatic’s attention to detail. There are insert trays in beech wood that you can position in different ways, like you were doing a jigsaw puzzle. Then there’s the section for spices and, much to our delight, an aluminum foil and cling wrap cutter – everyone knows how annoying cling wraps are.

"The fitted-gap free laminate insets with their rounded corners guarantee 100 percent hygiene," says Betsch. "Dirt and dust cannot penetrate anywhere." And the material that they use – because they’re not hardwood – are termite-free.

Another new feature of these drawers is the "slow-motion system" introduced at the Cologne fair last year. Drawers don’t close with a bang anymore but come to a stop and close automatically.

Betsch relates that copying of design happens a lot in Asia (tell us something we don’t know!), which is why it’s important for people to deal only with the exclusive distributor of SieMatic. "In China, for example, we faced a lot of problems. In Indonesia, they had a company that claimed they were producing SieMatic kitchens, they even had documents allegedly from SieMatic giving them the right to produce. In Malaysia, we found out there was one company copying SieMatic and other high-end products."

The real McCoy is imported from Germany. The company does not keep any stock because every size, configuration and color is customized.

How long does it take for SieMatic to design one’s kitchen? "It depends on the customers. We’ve had extreme cases where it took one year because they kept changing their minds. We’ve had customers who know exactly what they want and took them just five days. Depending on the product range, we need two to three months to make it and transport it here."

Cool It Down

We have this ad where a woman is taking her milk in the bathroom and pouring it into her bathtub," relates Sub-Zero’s Kurtis J. Hargens. "A lady saw this ad and she called us up and said this was the best thing she had ever seen, so she bought one of our 700 series. She doesn’t put milk in it; she puts her cosmetics, water bottles, etc. She called specifically to say how much she loves her Sub-Zeros in her bathroom!"

Sub-Zero’s Michael T. Avery, director of international sales for The Westye Group, says, "Our integrated refrigeration is also used in high-end yachts. We supplied most of the refs in golfer Greg Norman’s $90-million yacht: 14 Sub-Zeros."

"It’s a floating refrigerator," Hargens chuckles.

"The nice thing about Sub-Zero is that you have total diversity in any environment, any kitchen you want – contemporary, totally modern," adds Grant Riggs of the Westye Group, the biggest dealership of Sub-Zero and Wolf. "Covered up, the Sub-Zero looks like a cabinet or if you choose the stainless steel with glass doors, it looks like a piece of artwork."

Indeed, Sub-Zero’s drawer refs can be made invisible in the kitchen or the bedroom or any part of the house. Or, if you want to show off your Twin Z’s, you can proudly let them stand alone with their aluminum or glass doors wearing the Sub-Zero badge.

According to Hargens, what makes Sub-Zero special is that it’s the only one that uses two separate compressors or cooling systems. One system works on the refrigerator side and the other works on the freezer side. This makes it more energy efficient and helps keep the quality of the food inside the ref and the freezer.

Sub-Zero also has wine storage units that can be used for the home and commercial establishments. These units maintain a constant set temperature (separate for red and white wines) and a near ideal humidity of 60 percent to prevent corks from drying out. No more embarrassment over serving wine at the wrong temperature! The units are in stainless steel doors or doors that can be matched with your cabinetry, in glass or solid door, and in four sizes: from 46 bottles to 147 bottles.

Hot, Hot, Hot

Three years ago, Sub-Zero acquired another luxury brand in kitchen appliances: Wolf, which has over 70 years of experience in cooking. A California-based company, Wolf has since launched new lines to match Sub-Zero’s.

Range tops, barbecues, ovens and microwaves – a Wolf, like a Sub-Zero and SieMatic, symbolizes a person "who wants the best."

"It is not only a tool for cooking," the brochure declares. "It’s an invitation to cook."

Indeed, people who originally built an expensive kitchen for show find themselves becoming amateur chefs. A survey made by Wolf asked people why they cook. Their answers included: "To be in control," "To share something of myself with family and friends," "To travel through recipes."

"Later it hit us," said the company. "No one even mentioned the most basic reason for cooking: to have something to eat. For some people, cooking satisfies a hunger much deeper than mere physical appetite. It is for these people that we design and build Wolf cooking instruments."

Wolf is at home in the gourmet’s kitchen as it is in the weekend cook’s. Like SieMatic kitchen systems, Wolf products can be customized to fit one’s lifestyle. You need a deep fryer and a barbecue? The cooktop modules integrate with their larger counterparts. And like Sub-Zero, it has the ability to blend with the rest of the kitchen – drawer warmers to help preserve food until it’s time to serve it, their electronic controls hidden from view.

So, do we Asians design our kitchen differently from the rest of the world? Betsch says, "First we talk about the difference between the Philippines and the rest of Asia. The latter likes the modern industrial look, the Philippines until now has a thing for the country style. The reason for this, I also believe, is that until now, nobody has shown the modern style in the proper way."

Perhaps when people see how the kitchen can truly be the heart of the home, they will start paying more attention to the invisible essentials that it brings.

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For inquiries, call Focus Global at 634-8587, send fax to 634-8738, visit their website at www.focusglobalinc.com or their showroom at Pioneer corner Reliance St., Mandaluyong City.