Majjie's Blog

I went to the Grand Designs Live show at Excel London this last week ... partly to look at the kitchen displays (more about those in future blogs) ... but also to listen to the Kitchen Debate.

For a shorter summary of what it was and what happened - and the background behind it - have a look at The Grand Designs Kitchen Debate (over on Majjie's Kitchen Corner at Yell.com).  Basically, it was a debate about kitchen prices, prompted by Kevin McCloud suggesting that there was very little structural difference between a £5,000 kitchen and a £50,000 one ... and that kitchen units and doors were not something worth investing in.

Simon Grantham, MD of Miele, takes his jacket off
ready for the fray

The panellists came from very different sectors of the kitchen market and it seemed likely that there would be some lively differences of opinion. It turned out, though, that nobody really challenged Kevin and it was a fairly placid affair. That's not to say it wasn't interesting, though. It was fascinating stuff.

Kevin McCloud didn't really defend his remarks. He seemed quite surprised at the reaction they'd received and pointed out that his mention of kitchens was only a tiny part of his book "43 Principles of Home". He re-iterated his overall philosophy that products should be well made, ergonomic and a pleasure to use and that, ideally, they should also be beautiful and have done no known harm ... although he did admit that last was a very big ask. He thinks that we, as consumers, have lost touch with the value of well made things and that we should demand to know where the products we buy have come from and who made them. He likes products that are made in factories belonging to the businesses that sell them, using their own employees, and describes those products as being an embodiment of human energy as well as raw materials.

That's all well and good - but that could easily be a description of many UK kitchen companies - and what about the designers who use the units to design you a pleasing and functional kitchen and whose payment is part of the price? What about their human energy? Part of his justification for putting kitchen units in the "not worth investing in" category was that they're a product that "the next owners will invariably rip out and replace". Yet - during the debate - he said that we need to stop viewing kitchens as replaceable after a few years.

Well, he can't have it both ways. In my opinion - Kevin was wrong to categorise all kitchen units in the same way ... even though there is some truth in the fact that structurally there are many similarities between a cheap kitchen carcasse and an expensive one. And he was wrong to include kitchen units as items not worth investing in. Where he does have a point - which he mentioned during the debate - was for those who have very little money to invest in their kitchen. They need to decide where that money should go. For them, the taps, appliances and worktops ... the " machines that do the work and the bits you come into contact with" are the most important part of the kitchen ... but that's not exactly what Kevin said in his book and I suspect they wouldn't represent the main readers of it, either.

Martin Gill, managing director of Poggenpohl (whose kitchens cost £30,000, on average) pointed out that there were hundreds of little things that made the quality of a Poggenpohl kitchen (and, therefore, it's price) higher than that of an IKEA kitchen. The nearest we came to conflict was a look of displeasure from IKEA's Gerry Dufresne, when Simon admitted to stealing a shelf from the IKEA display at the show - to demonstrate the raw chipboard edges at the back and sides. Poggenpohl shelves and plinths are, apparently, edged all round; their plinth has an aluminium water bar to stop spilled water getting into the chipboard; they have lockable shelf supports; cover caps for the holes not used by the shelf supports ... and they use high density chipboard.

The average cost of a Poggenpohl kitchen is apparently £30,000

The most interesting thing that Martin Gill pointed out, though, was that only 40% of the cost of Poggenpohl kitchen furniture is the cost of the units. He didn't get as far as spelling out exactly what the rest was for but I guess it includes the cost of designers, as well as innovation and product development. He did mention that they had developed more eco friendly, water based lacquers for their kitchens and that they were working on an eco carcasse, using more recycled material and less new chipboard ... and that innovation like that costs money. He also pointed out that the area of Germany where Poggenpohl makes kitchens has a concentration of kitchen manufacturers and that the suppliers to those factories are mainly concentrated in the same area too - all within 60 miles of each other (so not many transport miles involved). Poggenpohl don't import components from China.

German kitchens may be produced on a large scale - but that's nothing compared to IKEA. They sell 1,100,000 kitchens per year in 38 different countries. Gerry Dufresne (kitchen range and design consultant at IKEA) concentrated on the affordability of IKEA kitchens and the fact that they cater for ordinary people with small rooms. Whether that room is in the UK or in China - it's usually less than 10 square metres in size. He also pointed out that IKEA had won an innovation award for their Ramsjo brown black kitchen (Kevin had suggested in his book that IKEA was copying the kitchens of German manufacturers) ... and that they approach the same German component manufacturers that Poggenpohl might use - get them to produce components specifically for IKEA kitchens - but get them at very cheap prices, simply because of the huge volume they are buying. IKEA also has a very ambitious target of making all their products 90% sustainable by 2015 ... they're not an uncaring mass producer of kitchens.

IKEA's Ramsjo brown black kitchen has won an award for innovation

Johnny Grey (kitchen design guru and director of Johnny Grey Studios, most of whose kitchens cost over £50,000) is, like Kevin McCloud, a concept person (whilst also being a superb kitchen designer, of course). He doesn't like characterless modern kitchens which look samey and plastic-y and reckons that the kitchen can be the room in your house that's least expressive of your personality. When he asked audiences on a tour of Australia and New Zealand to close their eyes and think about their dream kitchen, they didn't talk about the units they wanted but about what they'd do in their kitchen and the people they'd interact with. Johnny is a strong believer in kitchen as social space and is interested in the emotional and psychological aspects of kitchen design.

He sees a very big role for the kitchen designer and his or her main design tool - the furniture - whether that be new units or second hand pieces. He thinks a well designed kitchen will tell a story and be innovative, which means that you don't give people a kitchen like they already have and you work on the overall kitchen space without concentrating just on the kitchen units. That requires a creative partnership between designer and client, which shouldn't be sales driven. He was critical of kitchen suppliers who don't allow their designers to suggest structural alterations to the room, because that would slow down the sales process (and he also suggested that most kitchen designers don't cook ... something I've suggested myself before now!).

A stunning bespoke kitchen from Johnny Grey Studios

I'm all in favour of the creative partnership idea. Although I do question whether the average client is ready for very much innovation (I've mentioned that before: Can Kitchen Designers be Innovative).  What Johnny didn't emphasise - during the debate - was how the quality of that design process and attention to detail impacts on the cost of the kitchen and what advantages there might be, to using more expensive bespoke furniture. He's perhaps never used any other kind?

Simon Grantham, managing director of Miele made some very good points about how, over the ten year average life of a kitchen, the quality of new kitchen appliances is likely to have changed massively, especially with respect to being environmentally friendly. New appliances use much less electricity and much less water than older models (although he didn't specifically say that Kevin's idea of using an old Belling cooker from a skip was ridiculous!). Miele is committed to high quality and they're not prepared to compromise on that. They want customers to try before they buy, touch and feel the appliances and talk to showroom staff (a reference to the fact that they've backed away from some internet sales) ... and they quite expect to sell lower volumes of their high quality appliances as a result.

Andrew Davies editor of the KBB Review (a trade magazine) felt that the kitchen industry had failed to educate consumers as to what was important in the quality of a kitchen and how that was reflected in the price, especially when it came to big multiple suppliers with almost continual sales or 50% discounts. He pointed out that the average kitchen price for the UK was now £6,500 but that the average consumer engages with the industry so infrequently that they have very little knowledge of what they should be looking for and what would represent value for money.

I've spelled out elsewhere what I think the important differences are, between kitchens at different price levels and I too have criticised the inflated list prices that some kitchen suppliers use (see: A Comparison Part 1: How Much Does a Kitchen Cost?).

So why didn't the panellists grasp the nettle, tell Kevin he was wrong and point out more of the differences? Probably because they were the wrong people to do so. IKEA's Gerry Dufresne would have no reason to disagree with Kevin and, knowledgeable though they all are, in their own sphere, I don't imagine for one moment that any of the other panellists have ever struggled to design a kitchen with IKEA units, or any other kitchen with an average price tag of £5,000 or less. Perhaps they should all try it? Whether or not the shelves were edged all the way round would be the least of their worries!