The award-winning Manchester-based company employs this approach to ensure that the design, specification and functionality of their kitchens appeal directly to the aspirations of a developer-client’s target buyer, bolstering market value and stimulating quicker sales.

Working with the UK’s leading developers on a wide range of projects, this strategy has proven itself time and again. “Buyers pay particular attention to the quality and brand of the kitchen when making a decision about a property”, said Caroline Saville, Sales and Marketing Director at Crosby Homes. “In fact, on occasions it was the deciding factor in buying a Crosby home over buying a property from a competitor.”

Katie Lavender, Sales and Marketing Consultant at Hillcrest Homes agrees: “With the market in its current state, it’s more important than ever to make sure that all aspects of a home convey quality and style, and this is especially true in the kitchen. It’s so important to a buyer that it has the potential to be a deal maker, or breaker and can add thousands to a property’s value, or see it plummet.”

As a new year looms on the horizon Stuart Frazer Contracts’ Belinda Sewell takes a look at some emerging trends in the world of kitchen design and suggests how they can be harnessed to maximise a development’s market appeal.

1. The death of minimalism
Modernist minimalism has reigned supreme as the dominant aesthetic in kitchen design for over a decade. As the hardest working house in the home, the clean lines and uncluttered surfaces represented a perfect marriage of form and function: its aesthetic appeal was borne directly out of its operational efficiency.

Whilst a more relaxed post-modern eclecticism as permeated the visual vernacular in other disciplines (fashion, graphics, architecture, interiors), the kitchen has clung fast to this purist aesthetic.

However, 2007 will finally herald the decline of modernist minimalism as the dominant aesthetic in the kitchen as a result of the following lifestyle shifts:

Open plan living
The rise of open plan living has diversified the role of the kitchen almost beyond recognition. Once a room where one person cooked, cleaned and washed it is a hive of activity where the entire family works, rests and plays.
If the kitchen is the new living room, a restrained and inhibited aesthetic is no longer relevant. Versatility, comfort and practicality are the predominant functional considerations as the kitchen is expected to cater for homework sessions and dinner parties as much as for food preparation and dishwashing.

The maintenance of a minimalist aesthetic is not practical in a room that serves such a diversity of purposes, sees so much activity and contains so much paraphernalia. An opportunity exists to for developers to add value by creating kitchens that incorporate contemporary design cues, but remain comfortable with clutter. Not a return to twee, country kitchen pastiches, but a genuinely new combination of modern, traditional and international approaches.

Diversifying consumer tastes
Consumer tastes are becoming increasingly diverse. As the world continues to shrink as a result of globalization, the internet and cheap international travel, the cross pollination of cultures has broadened aesthetic horizons. An unruly mishmash of cultures, eras and styles has become de rigueur across most other design disciplines (architecture, fashion, graphics, interiors) and gratuitious ornamentation is no longer a cardinal sin. Consumers can cherry pick from this cornucorpia of styles to create an aesthetic that is as individual as they think they are.

As such, placing a value on individual expression in the kitchen will boost the appeal of a development in the mind of a prospective buyer. Going far beyond the freedom to decide finishes and colours, tomorrow’s homeowner will want a kitchen that is as comfortable with its stainless steel appliances as it is with its antique dresser and ethnic table. They will want to experiment further with vibrant colours and high gloss finishes and will no longer be shy of grand statements.

At the vanguard of this trend, SieMatic has just (September 2006) launched its Beauxarts collection to the UK market, designed to allow innumerable unlikely combinations amongst appliances, furniture and ornamental pieces: elegant minimalist furniture meets rustic stoves; stainless steel appliances meet antique collectables.

The kitchen as the new living room
As the kitchen’s role as a family room continues to grow, sumptuous curves will make a comeback, replacing the pristine straight lines characteristic of the modernist tendency. With the whole family using the room for different purposes, potentially at the same time, and children running about the place, curves are simply much more practical and will introduce a more relaxed, feminine touch.

Inline with the diverse role that kitchen now plays, the incorporation of entertainment technology such as computer work spaces and multi-media systems will become almost as important as their functional counterparts.

Bringing the outdoors in
Intelligent designers will meet demand for warmer, more comfortable kitchen environments by ‘bringing the outdoors in’. Natural materials, slate floors, timber finishes and a warmer colour palette will diffuse the clinical uniformity of pure minimalism. Cues will be taken from the external architecture of a property in order to establish cohesion between the public and private realm.

2. The environment
In the wake of the Stern report, environmental concerns are set to play a defining role in the future of the property market as a whole. In the kitchen, sustainably sourced materials, A rated appliances, and more earthy colour palettes will reflect a concern for the environment and appeal to a more organic aesthetic.

Keen to ensure that the kitchen not only minimises damage to the environment, but also appeals to the increasing role the green priorities play in the lifestyles of its target markets, developers will look to incorporate multiple waste bins for easy separation and encourage reduce landfill and refuse collections by embracing waste disposal units.

3. The power of brand
As the market continues to be flooded with property, quality will rise further up the agenda as a key differentiating factor: specification will become as important as location and the pulling power of brand names will increase in the kitchen.

The increased visibility of the kitchen across the media, combined with aspirational marketing approaches from property and homeware companies has stimulated kitchen brand awareness amongst consumers. In the same way that society demands branded cars and fashion for peace of mind and as a statement of identity, so homeowners will demand appliances, furniture and accessories weighted with brand equity.

Stuart Frazer Contracts has noticed a sharp increase in the number of customers asking for the brand by name. With the entry of a range of high profile brands from Benetton to Calvin Klein into the homeware market, and the likes of John Rocha putting their name to interior design projects, the role that brand plays in the design of the kitchen is set to gather strength.

4. Scientific functionality
As pressure on the kitchen will increase to perform under all conditions, intelligent designers will take functionality considerations to ever-greater depths. Ergonomics will create a smoother interface between human beings and their kitchen furniture and appliances. Anthropometrics will increase functionality through consideration of the physical attributes of a target market: worktop heights, appliance doors, working spaces etc.
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