Kitchens, houses, furniture are solid long-lasting things with an air of heritage about them. They do not have a the whiff of fast moving, responsive, mood-of-the-times fashion. Kitchen renovators might be scared off if their kitchen designer mentions cool new trends that might be short lived. They expect to be co-habiting with their kitchen for years, not changing with the latest catwalk creation.

Does home design need fashion? A need for renewal and fresh thinking is always welcome. On the other hand, the more we become aware of ecological damage and shortage of resources, the more we need to make longevity a priority. We need changing landscapes. Summer, winter and spring would have to be invented if they did not already exist.

The relationship between fashion and design is historical. Would the French Aristocratic women have come up with Recocco style – the first fashion inspired movement that affected interiors? Osbert Lancaster’s feast of send-ups in ‘Here of All Places,’ the most famous historical cartoons of interior styles, demonstrates an easy transfer of style ideas between home décor and fashion.

Fashion me a kitchen that picks up the chatter of contemporary conversations, but don’t let it take over the design. Plan the kitchen to work around our instincts, look carefully at new research coming from a solid foundation like neuroscience and then, for icing on the cake use, use objects of decor that can be changed easily. Add you own utensils, the clutter of a busy household, and the necessary accroutrements of survival,  and you will quickly be in touch with the land of now. For me that is the essence of being fashionable.

In recent years, I’ve noticed that the media seems to focus on how to survive this event, rather than celebrate it. What should be an intimate affair, with a deep renewal of bonds between family members, is now seen as an emotionally charged maelstrom. In essence, Americans have misplaced the ritual of a home cooked meal.

According to leading sociologists, it is the lack of participation that has led to the downfall of Thanksgiving. And the cure for this lazy malaise? It seems that the principle of ‘action absorbing anxiety’ has demonstrated that if each member of the family has a specific task at hand, a bonding synergy will be generated that has healthy neurological implications for all. In other words, get them involved.

The role of kitchen designer is integral to the success of this objective. If we look at the typical suburban floor plan, the fragmentation of active rooms has only reaffirmed the archaic gender boundary. This aged stereotype of women preparing food in the kitchen while the men watch football in the living room has yet to evaporate in the majority of Americans homes. In this layout, the sterile dining room becomes a transient pause for food and drink, a no man’s land between kitchen and living. As designers, we must recognize the importance of breaking down these boundaries, both physically and mentally.

It is our duty to create spaces that emphasize this seamless flow between functions, visually linking us as a family unit and encouraging democratic planning on all levels. A kitchen layout must be flexible enough to support several activities at once and allow the passive observer to interact if desired. It can be said that food preparation is a stronger bonding experience than eating itself.

Think foreplay. It is this very anticipation in the fulfillment of a desire that makes the activity so powerful. Isolating individuals from this process can only lead to detachment on a larger scale. This active living space should be a welcoming environment for all. Transforming this concept of task into something much bigger than work is the challenge set forth.

Perhaps we should learn to dine in the midst of our own kitchens? Once upon a time it was the norm. There’s a thought, Thanksgiving every night.

*Editor’s note: this blog post by Kevin was originally published last year, but we thought we’d revisit it in celebration of the holiday.

One of the core tenets of our design philosophy at JG Studios is that a happy kitchen is the central ingredient in the recipe for a happy home. And to create a happy kitchen, you need to cater to the youngest members of the family by creating a safe, warm space where they can learn the joys of preparing food – not to mention the fun of making a mess that mom gets to clean up afterwards! (Can you say “Food fight!”?)

We’ve recently been in touch with chef Dorette Snover, founder and owner of C’est Si Bon cooking school based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. She and her husband opened the doors to C’est si Bon after Hurricane Fran destroyed their old kitchen in 1997. When the family completed rebuilding the kitchen the next summer, they invited some of their son’s friends for a week of cooking.

“We combed the nearby woods for blackberries for luscious pies, and took [the kids] on adventures to goat-cheese farms…The last night we invited their parents to come to dinner and enjoy a meal cooked from scratch,” Dorette explains.

That experience led her to a new career in cooking with kids. “Eleven years later, we teach over 160 young people in the Kid-Chef day camps and over 50 in the Teen-Chef tours,” Dorette says.

In addition to residential and day camps in North Carolina, C’est si Bon offers three culinary tours for teens in Provence, the Loire Valley and Paris. Students attend cooking classes with local chefs, shop for ingredients at open-air markets and visit local cheese artisans and beekeepers.

Dorette’s approach to food is reminiscent of our approach to kitchen design, and both of us incorporate philosophies such as the slow food movement into our work. For example, provenance, which is so important to food, applies equally to physical things. Knowing where your furniture is made, being able to see it constructed, using eco-sourced materials, good craftspeople and in preferably smaller, well-managed workshops, applies the Slow Food principles to the making of things. (For more on this subject, see Johnny’s post on “Slow Kitchens”).

We’re putting together some tips on cooking with kids – and how to create kitchens for kids! As one of our clients, Tiffany Wood, told the Financial Times in a recent piece on curvy kitchens (get the whole scoop here), the extra large work spaces we installed in her kitchen lend themselves to family bonding over food: “I have three children and they have countless cousins, and they all love to cook. They come and make pancakes crowded round the great big worktops - I can squeeze in 12 children round those curves.”

Stay tuned for more on how to squeeze more children ’round your own cooking spaces.