By Caroline Cumberbatch
According to anthropologist Richard Wrangham, cooking fundamentally altered the human species.
He claims the control of fire and the advent of cooking sparked significant biological changes (including brain development and digestive efficiency). This shaped human communities through the shift from solitary foraging to communal meals around fires.
No wonder the kitchen is positioned as the heart of the home. Writer Tony Birch describes it as “a place of great joy that held memories of life that were always loving”.
But the Australian kitchen is a consumable product, typically replaced every 15 to 20 years in pursuit of an idealised lifestyle. The kitchen is now a site for renovation, consumption and waste generation – not an enduring place of connection to our sense of belonging and culture.
Contemporary kitchen replacement cycles create physical waste and destroy any accumulated social value, with new kitchens constructed from materials designed to prevent such accumulation in the first place.
If we think about the kitchen as a space that sustains family and community bonds, we can rethink the way we renovate it.
The changing shape of our kitchens
In the 1850s, a traditional kitchen centred around a large table that enabled communal work to cook simple food like bread, pies or stew.
Social changes brought about by the industrial revolution reduced the availability of domestic servants for middle-class households and created pressure to redesign kitchens for women working alone.
By the mid-20th century, as women increasingly entered the workforce, kitchen design became focused on efficiency. Compact workspaces, continuous benchtops and integrated storage emerged to accommodate both preparing and cooking meals, and multitasking.
Internal walls were removed by the late 1970s to reveal open kitchen dining areas. This organised approach became a display of style and status.
Since then, purely functional considerations have given way to striking visual appeal.
In 2020–21, newly built Australian homes installed 215,000 kitchens, valued at a record A$7.58 billion. This was in addition to an estimated 160,000 kitchen renovations – 64 percent of which involved enlarging the kitchen footprint. This suggests we are renovating our kitchens in a reimagining of the space, rather than for maintenance or repair.
Paradoxically, as kitchens get larger and cost more, the actual practice of home cooking has measurably declined.
Cooking up waste
Approximately 29 million tonnes of building waste accumulated in Australia in 2022–23. Replaced kitchens go mostly to landfill.
Compounding the generation of physical waste, current design practices also erode the kitchen’s ability to function as the heart of social life.
A central table creates a natural gathering place. Contemporary island benches typically arrange seating along one side. Stools lined like soldiers are organised for service and separate work and social sides.
Rather than a social hub, this design restricts social interaction beyond the person straight ahead.
Contemporary kitchen design also ignores the accumulated social value in existing materials. Instead of honouring worn spots where hands have rested and marks that record meals shared together, kitchens are replaced with mass-produced materials designed to emphasise aesthetics.
Like jeans that acquire character over time, kitchen surfaces store memories and reflect personal experiences. Authentic emotional connection emerges through use. It is not artificially applied through styling.
Kitchen materials themselves are manufactured in ways that prevent the formation of social connections. Materials that promote “fingerprint resistance” promise to prevent the signs that would otherwise document human presence and family interaction.
This positions the ideal kitchen as one that never shows evidence of having been used at all.
Highly polished, pristine surfaces were once needed to prevent the spread of tuberculosis. Today, materials gleam to create luxurious effects and provide an appearance of hygiene, which is felt to be a genuine need.
Materials that maintain pristine appearances become markers of status. The material resistance to marking represents a deeper resistance to the social connections kitchens traditionally fostered.
Contemporary kitchen culture embodies a fundamental contradiction. The “heart of the home” is designed to resist the very traces of life that would make them heartful.
A different approach
“Designer” kitchens increasingly adhere to standardised perfection. An alternate approach to designing these spaces recognises them as places where social bonds strengthen during time spent together preparing, sharing and conversing.
When you think about renovating your kitchen, think about how the space will evolve over time, rather than reaching for a complete, manufactured solution that is replicated globally.
Consider what can be reused and repaired. And think about what materials invite touch and develop character with use, evolving to become catalysts for storytelling and memory-sharing, thereby extending the kitchen’s lifetime. This might mean reusing handles touched by children over years, or drawer faces which connect past to present.
Incorporate a central table to form a genuine social hub.
Engage craftspeople and artists as collaborators who can creatively rework existing materials and objects into distinctive, functional elements for a new space, rather than manufacturers supplying a whole new room.
Every material preserved binds us together and honours the people and resources they embody.
The more we invest in creating the perfect kitchen, the less capable it is to develop the authentic connections that justify its central position in family life.
Caroline Cumberbatch is a PhD Candidate, School of Creative Arts and Media, University of Tasmania. This article was first published by The Conversation.
