Eating and cleaning are primary needs of humans
Firstly a personal note here. Not all people are in the position to have the very most basic functions attended, our sympathy goes out to them and we would like to invite our readers, rather than donating to our website to help pay for the content we provide, but to make a charitable donation to help people who do not have proper access to clean water or cooking and toilet facilities. There are many charities who will help these people, we recommend this charity and this one. So please donate generously if you find our content of use to your interior design inspiration. What goes around comes around.
So, on with the program. Eating, socializing and cooking. What a mixture of primary needs and functions, and this is what the kitchen must if possible provide, irrespective of the size or position of the assigned room in your property. Historically humans have hunted and gathered. We hunt at the mall now, and gather from chain stores, however we still go back to our refuges and cook and eat together. A kitchen design should provide the space and practicalities which are needed for entertaining and possibly dining (unless you have the room to design a dining room).
The bathroom on the other hand has predominantly been a personal hiding space. We are private with these functions on the whole. Although we talk about Roman baths as sociable spaces, other primary needs are clearly private and creating a bathroom which performs these needs and combines them with luxurious and functional cleaning aspects will often give us the psychological home of relaxation. Many methods for enhancing privacy have been utilised over the years including screening windows with bathroom shutters - you can see examples here and more here, with internal waterproof coverings for screens exemplified here.
Defining interior kitchens and bathrooms
We will assume we have energy supplies for these rooms, perhaps a luxury but we take as given for designs. Whether your home uses natural gas, electricity or other means of power. We do of course have other means of sustainable energy production more widely available today. Where early kitchens will have utilized wood for burning, cow dung pellets and other resources for heating and cooking, we have other energy resources available today on the whole. However let us not be presumptuous as many design trends are moving back to what was once considered primitive and is now perhaps more retro or chic and not in the shabby sense.The light and space of kitchens and bathrooms will dictate a greater element of design than in other rooms where less practical requirements are needed. A living room can be more shaped and window or door coverings chosen for different aesthetics, however we do need to work in a very close way in these most practical of rooms.
Finding escape routes and providing lighting are essential for these rooms. We need to see what we are doing and escape quickly if it all goes wrong. Having worktops and access to refrigerators and cookers are important as are reaching towels and materials in a bathroom. We'll look at each aspect of need against design and how to facilitate these with a style that is as individual as you are. The wow factor never had more recognition that in these two rooms and we provide access routes to generating that very factor.