Future Kitchen Design Ideas : Creating the Kitchen of 2050

It started as a fire pit in the ground, cooking the day’s hunt over open flame. As civilization evolved, future kitchen design ideas evolved alongside us. From the origins of mankind with the discovery of cooked meat to refrigeration allowing for the preservation of food, electricity and gas brought the stove inside the home, microwaves and packaged foods minimized cooking times and effort.

Today, the kitchen has a defined space inside the home but how will it perform within the context of a global society in the future? There are many systemic challenges we will face as a civilization. In the year 2050, the global population will reach 9 billion and will need solutions for a sustainable food supply, water supply, energy supply, waste management, nutrition and the socio-cultural breakdown of the family unit. How will the kitchen play a role in the life of our future cities, our countries and our planet?

Who better to consider these changes and challenges than the eager, innovative students from the Industrial Design department at Pratt Institute? Led by the creative direction of New York based architect and designer Marc Thorpe and partnered with Caesarstone, the team created the kitchen of the future, on exhibit at WantedDesign NYC in May.

“At first, students hesitated how to design for the future, which is such an unknown and often frightening territory. Once they researched the possibilities, their thinking got liberated. It was a transition from marketing commercial constraints into free consideration of ecological, nutritional, social issues. Design students, by nature, are believers in improving the world and making it a better place. The Future Kitchen project offers a fertile ground for their imagination,” explains Chairman of the Industrial Design department at Pratt Institute.

So what does the kitchen of the future look like and what trends are we seeing that will lead us to this vision? Marc Thorpe explains that “The kitchen of 2050 by Caesarstone and Pratt is a return of fundamentals of humanity. It’s about the reclaiming of the family unit through the pleasure of cooking.”

In considering tackling challenges facing future designers, the students worked with Bio Designer Danielle Trofe. “A zero-waste, closed loop kitchen is probably as “green” as you can get. This means cycling all water, food, energy within the kitchen without creating waste, or making sure that the “waste” gets put back into the system.” One of the students, Luke Simmons, says “My favorite part of the kitchen is the water system. The water from the sink drains into a filter and then feeds the hydroponic plant system, taking advantage of otherwise wasted water. We also designed a unique steam atomization dishwasher, which uses much less water and energy than a normal dishwasher.”

Caesarstone is proud to be a part of the kitchen of the future with Raven, Statuario Nuvo, and Concrete integrated into the innovative concept. “Quartz is a fundamental element and will continue to be in the future. As technologies advance quartz surfaces will evolve to become even more fundamentally integrated,” Thorpe explains.

“The material speaks for itself, and when put into the context of the kitchen of the future, it takes on a timeless quality where the kitchen never loses its sense of elegance and durability… To me, the Caesarstone quartz surface is the liaison between the present and the future of kitchen design,” describes another student, Feras Alhabib.