Design for small kitchen
Group:
Andrea Quinones, Shantanu Kashikar, Shirui Wang, Xuanzi Chen
This is a group project we did in Human-Centered Design and Innovation Class in Fall 2021.
​
​
We define small kitchen in big city such as New York as our territory. through our research, we found that nearly 40% people in NYC are sharing apartments with others.
The reasons behind that are comparably small apartment due to expensive housing and a trend that meets with Millennials’ preference to use the extra space provided for living and entertaining.
Living with friends can be fun but when it comes to share the kitchen, there are quite a few challenges such as not enough counter space, hygiene problem and cooking conflict.
​
We conducted a survey on people's experience with sharing kitchen, and found that the biggest problem can be not enough counter space.
After different ideas and customer feedback, we generated prototypes for our product design called CounterEx.
The CounterEx attached to the cabinet door and the size is customized to fit the original cabinet.
It can be installed to replace any original cabinet door so that can be “extended” in different directions based on different kitchen floor.
Apply the same mechanism as tilt and turn windows. CounterEx can be opened horizontally and lifted vertically. The Inner Frame helps in lifting the door vertically whereas the outer frame helps in horizontal movement