John Naish’s article, “What makes a house a home?” in the October issue of Psychologies Magazine begins with the proclamation: ‘You and I are never going to get on’. He was referring to a grand Victorian trophy house that he bought to fulfil what turned out to be a misconceived fantasy.

Naish then swapped his Victorian nightmare for an odd shaped, ramshackle but loveable London terrace house. In so doing, he learnt that aspiration and comfort are very different creatures indeed. Comfort is complex, hard to achieve and at the very top of the list of human needs.

Naish seeks out research from social scientists and writers to find out what it is that makes a house a home. At the beginning, he quotes neuro-scientist John Zeisel: ‘our genetically developed instincts make us feel relaxed around flowers, hearth and water’. Edward Wilson, professor of comparative zoology at Harvard, expands upon this statement by explaining biophilia, which is our need for organic surroundings.

Studies by Frances Kuo at Illinois University also found that women residing in apartments are less depressed when they have views of nature, while novelist Douglas Coupland is quoted about de-narration and the damage caused by banishing all references to personal clutter.

Frank McAndrew, an environmental psychologist at Knox College, Illinois says we prefer rooms with nooks and we like to survey our spaces from a safe vantage point so we don’t feel exposed. Meanwhile, author and professor Clare Cooper Marcus from Berkeley in her book House as Mirror of Self advises us to ‘ask the house to talk’ if you feel lost in what to do.

The quest for psychologically and physically comfortable homes is what we at JG studios have been striving at for years. We have updated our concept of the unfitted kitchen with the sympathetic application of neuroscience in our spatial analysis. We get a mention at the end of John’s piece as purveyors of Sofa Geography. Pick up the latest issue of Psychologies to more to find out what that is!

During a recent trip to Shanghai, walking through an open site of a high rise development, I was both confronted and confounded by a client’s question regarding the ‘modern’ plan layout. The client could simply not comprehend why anyone would want their kitchen visible to the rest of the living spaces, let alone naked to the eyes of discerning guests. Why showcase the grime, grease and toil? Of course, the environment for consuming food was of critical importance, but the ghastly preparation needed to be concealed at all cost. Such was the Chinese way.

Though whispers of societal change are certainly afoot, I do sense that the open kitchen ideal still remains an enigma in much of the East. The kitchen has always embodied nourishment and prosperity in both the physical and mythical, yet it was all but considered a functional composition within the home. Aesthetics were never set on this particular agenda, it was perhaps more profound than that. History reiterates this notion across the East, where shrines were typically mounted above stoves, a nod to the polytheistic paths that gave a single deity control over the enclosed hearth of the kitchen, the soul of the home.

Indeed, many subscribe to the class system perspective where servants were, and still are, part of the social make-up of the cooking process. Yet this does not address the fact that the lower classes had their cooking zones located in their courtyards, sub-buildings and entry halls.  So what has changed?  As with the West, the modern kitchen of the East is a more cleansed environment, freed from the olfactory oppression of yesteryear.  Refrigeration, running water and ventilation have inevitably brought the kitchen alongside the living room.  There lies now but a single, dividing, illusionary wall.

Technological advances aside, we must also remember that the perception of the Western kitchen changed forever when we were reminded that cooking was both a highly creative and social act, not merely a means to an end. This revolutionary understanding was adapted to all walks of life, not only confined to the whims of the upper classes. Ultimately, the integration of the kitchen into the living room represented a massive pivotal shift. It was and is inextricably linked to the social, innate binding of a family fabric that lies outside of the ethos of workplace.

So is the expanding middle class mindset of the East now perched at this tipping point? Or has the glossy photo spread of a Western lifestyle been thrust upon all as we all grapple with globalization? Perhaps this whole narrative has nothing to do with orientation, but in actuality, a natural evolution of the kitchen and its destined relationship to the family core. Indeed, as the formality of the dining room withered away in the West many years ago, perhaps it is now time for the cloaked kitchen of the East to be celebrated and reclaim its rightful open place in the center of the home.

I find it fascinating that New Urbanism has begun to flourish under these recessionary times. Is the American pedestrian really an oxymoron? The concepts of transit-oriented, sustainable, mixed-use developments and high-density, walkable neighborhoods all seem to make perfect sense in these days of credit freeze and high-energy costs. I hear the voices of Jane Jacobs and Kevin Lynch resonating through the halls of planning departments nationwide.

Healthy signs abound, yet we stand at ripe beginnings on this crusade against the giant stain of suburbia. Our recent graduates have been given the task of reshaping. We can only hope this mess is reversible. Both Yale and Harvard see the heroic opportunities here, sensing a historic moment to rethink urban strategies.

So what does this all mean to our ever-evolving kitchen? Returning to the ways of Main Street America will no doubt create a healthier, smarter, more sustainable kitchen in our homes. Without long commutes, families will have more time in the kitchen, both in the mornings and evenings.

More importantly, there will be time to actually prepare food, a task that has almost vanished from American culture in recent years. A ‘mixed-use’ living populace that lives in proximity to work does not have to buy in bulk, nor does it require a car. Hence, storage concerns in our kitchens will be revised.

There is also the belief that our active living footprints shall be reduced in size as we learn to grasp quality over quantity of space. Therein lies the importance of a skilled designer. Markets, supplying local produce, can once again thrive as a neighborhood beacon for sustainable communities. The integration of aging generations into future communities will also reshuffle the levels of interactions in the kitchen, allowing the oral tradition to seep through families on many levels.

Yet there is no wheel to reinvent here, the successful models have never left us. Ironically, as the Industrial Age drove a class out of their urban homes into the countryside, so will New Urbanism drive the boomers back into the diverse urban landscape they yearn for.  Perhaps this is the necessary transition that all Americans must now face.

Yet why does the media portray this as a ’sacrifice’ to common America? Surely we need to refocus our lens and make people aware of a quality of life that can literally exist around each and every corner.

Of course, if gas prices continue to rise, it may indeed be a forced revolution. Though utopian in spirit, I would prefer the voluntary to lead this pedestrian parade.