Prefabrication experiments - 127 - material innovations - 8 - Customizable Bruynzeel wood kitchens

Assessing prefabrication’s success in widespread construction often disregards the dwelling function that unquestionably benefited most from industrial manufacturing leveraged toward building. Kitchen design absorbed archetypal offsite construction principles: modular dimensions, normalized components and simplified assembly. Universal uniformity and coordination contributed to developing the kitchen into a customizable hub for living. The modern house’s nucleus was founded on the modernist laboratory ideology associated with experiments such as the Frankfurt Kitchen designed by Margarete Shütte-Lihotsky in 1926. The kitchen was the keystone of the era’s ideal «conveniences ».

Prefabricated built-ins, from counters to storage spaces and linear kitchen walls, factory production established a type of early mass customization. Today, the Ikea kitchen is the model of personalization; Combining an intuitive on-line interface (the Ikea kitchen planner), dimensionally coordinated sectional units and ease of assembly, customers can design their overall plan and choose counter, storage, full-height or counter height units, materials and hardware and purchase their kitchen with or without the help of customer service.

The modular coordination and user customization proposed by Ikea's sectional units dates back to modern experiments. The most iconic example of this standardisation is the Dutch Bruynzeel woodworking company. Inspired by mass-production and a kitchen designed by J.W. Janzen mandated by the Netherlands Association of Housewives, the company transformed their woodworking factory into a staple of prefabricated kitchen production in the Netherlands. Designer Koen Limperg was hired to conceive kitchen elements along with a streamlined fabrication and assembly process. Based on these preliminary experiments, the company undertook a prototype kitchen in 1933, which was completed in 1938 by designer Piet Zwart. The Bruynzeel standardized kitchen was based on the careful study of ergonomics and daily kitchen tasks.

In the early 1960’s, the company’s configurator, a scale model design tool, best exemplified the company’s vision.  The promotional tool placed in commercial outlets, let clients design and explore their own kitchen ideas. Each modular unit was masterfully coordinated and could be attached to the mock-up’s walls with magnets in order to quickly test any iteration.  The Bruynzeel system’s agility both in response to customer needs and supply chain management illustrates what whole building production was not able to achieve on an equally productive scale.

Promotional tool for Bruynzeel kitchens