I just converted an old school into studio apartments. I took each classroom and added a kitchen and a bath. I based the length of the kitchen counter on a Frankfurt Kitchen(around 11'). I got a little overwhelmed by the project so the kitchen are pretty stark. I plan on adding details and functionality.
Hey, this looks nice, great kitchen/bath module. How did you seal the plywood in the shower, just lots of clear coat? Or is this an epoxy layer? Thanks.
detourdog 1 days ago [-]
Fiberglass and epoxy like a boat. The wood backing is 1.5 millimeter 3 layer mahogany plywood.
djoldman 1 days ago [-]
Laminate countertop and mahogany veneer plywood in the same project is wild. I assume these were the materials available? :)
detourdog 1 days ago [-]
The shower is my effort to get away from tile which I find cold to the touch. I also wanted to minimize seams and corners. I have always liked white formica countertops. The only drawback is the it's ability to absorb heat. I don't like the cloudiness of corian.
The 2.0 kitchen countertops will be made of white oak planks like a farm table top. This will be more durable than the formica.
_ink_ 1 days ago [-]
That's really cool. You don't blog about this project somewhere, do you? I'd be interested in following the progress.
detourdog 1 days ago [-]
I don't. I have had a domain since they were free and barely have a website.
Here is a url with a lot of the construction photos.
Still browsing those pictures, what a lovely project. Kudos for turning a school into housing units, that's a lot of surface area to work on.
detourdog 13 hours ago [-]
Thank you, I thought the school was small enough to manageable but I was really wrong. The project was too big but I ended up surviving.
I'm really excited to be on the other side of the hard work. I want to organize the images into a website. If you are ever in the area I would be happy to show you.
comrade1234 1 days ago [-]
I live in a new modern apartment with a big open kitchen/dining/livingroom area that's very esthetic, but sometimes I miss my previous galley kitchen where I could stand in one spot and reach almost every pan, knife, etc. as I'm cooking.
potato3732842 1 days ago [-]
The entire new apartment and condo industry is built around attracting the largest buyer demographic during a 10min walk through. That buyer is a late 20s single (or otherwise unilaterally decision making) woman. Many millions have been spent on market research to figure out what these women want.
This is why modern apartments have big bathrooms with copious flat space around the sink and good looking living spaces but when you actually live in them you'll find out there's not enough room to scoot around your wife's thicc ass while she's digging for something in the fridge or any attempt to host a party becomes an instant game of human bumper cars due to the traffic paths to the drinks, bathroom, main room. Many times you'll even find that these apartments can only be furnished with minimalist aesthetics while there is technically room for standard furniture and appliance sets they make the spaces unusable. Women don't get exited about the kind of "there's space on this wall for a 80" TV and if we put the beer on the left side of the fridge you can reach it without getting off the couch" and "look at all these kitchen cabinets, I'll never pull out a pan to find that it's dirty from oil/dust" raw practicality type stuff that men do and will happily trade it away to make a more aesthetic space. Men will also much more readily live in older construction and place less value upon "new" or "new-ish" so there's a healthy amount of "what new buyers want vs what used buyers want" discrepancy going on too.
Source: Too much time listening to the guy who sells the cabinets for these new apartments.
9dev 1 days ago [-]
That sounds… wildly specific to the US. The game is very different in Germany, where practically no one can afford to buy property in their late twenties, or if they can, it’s not economically sustainable to do so.
Most new apartments are strictly divided into tiers—singles and students in their early twenties with very little money; couples without children (yet), but lots of disposable income; families with one or two children, and a double income; and elderly couples. If you don’t fall into these demographics, you’re bound for a rough time.
detourdog 1 days ago [-]
My market focus is on individuals that want a consistent monthly housing expense. I included the utilities in the rent which includes fiber optic internet. My thinking is a consistent expense for housing helps people starting out with their budgeting.
autobodie 1 days ago [-]
It won't be consistent because you will be raising the rent every chance you get. Trust me.
detourdog 1 days ago [-]
My first tenant which has been here over 3 years started at a discounted rate and is paying 20% less than my last tenant to move in. I have never raised there rent. The first tenant has not experienced a rent increase.
These units are available for at will tenancy(no lease). My plan is to raise the rent on turn over rather than nickel and dime the existing tenants.
niemandhier 17 hours ago [-]
A noble attitude, check the tax laws.
A friend of mine got in trouble in Munich for collecting to little rent.
Authorities assumed some form of tax fraud.
autobodie 1 days ago [-]
That's what they all say.
autobodie 1 days ago [-]
> You'll find out there's not enough room to scoot around your wife's thicc ass
> That sounds… wildly specific to the US.
wil421 1 days ago [-]
I think 85% of home sales in the US are single family. So split up 15% between town homes and condos. OP is describing a small part of new properties. I assume you’re talking about condos. What OP is talking about is more of what you describe, students, singles, and new families (with or without kids).
There’s a lot of active adult 55+ and no kid neighborhoods. I wonder how they compare to what OP describes, I’ve never been in one.
detourdog 1 days ago [-]
My current crop of tenants run the range of early 20s to late 50's and is a mix between couples and singles.
detourdog 1 days ago [-]
I specifically worked on traffic flow in the bathroom. Notice that it is almost a galley bathroom. The traffic flow is straight line and all the services are against a single wall. I failed on my bathroom sink counter in a couple of areas, but I can't to iterate on design.
I wanted to get all the units finished before I start the redesign process. I have gotten good feedback from the users over the past 2 years. I'm about to post the last unit for rent. Once that is done I will start work on the refinements.
analog31 1 days ago [-]
My mom's reaction when she was looking for an apartment to rent: "Nobody cooks any more."
throw0101d 1 days ago [-]
See also Taylorism:
> Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky continued to design kitchens. Her mid-20th century designs incorporated electrical appliances while continuing to rely on methods for efficiency advanced by Frederick Winslow Taylor and Christine Frederick.[8]
> big open kitchen/dining/livingroom area that's very esthetic
Did you mean ascetic? I’m trying to figure out what you meant but I’m not sure, because ascetic kind of contradicts the other descriptors.
SamBam 1 days ago [-]
Esthetic/aesthetic (US vs UK spelling) has become an adjective in recent years, meaning "pretty." My kids say "that's very aesthetic," which drives me up the wall, but I have to accept that language evolves.
eadmund 1 days ago [-]
I’m pretty sure that he meant ‘æsthetic.’
nkrisc 1 days ago [-]
That still doesn’t make sense.
Edit: just saw the other comment. I suppose they meant “aesthetically pleasing”.
detourdog 1 days ago [-]
Aesthetic
PyWoody 1 days ago [-]
I love galley kitchens. Another benefit is there isn't enough room for others to mingle, so they get out of the way by instinct.
eadmund 1 days ago [-]
> A “planned order” was to replace the “senseless chaos” of the world.
The trouble with this is the implicit assumption that planned order is better. If there’s a plan, then there must be a planner, who is after all only human. He’ll have his own biases, his own emotions. And he won’t have all the information he needs. He might plan a kitchen which works really, really well for a family of four, but will it work for a bachelor? Will it work for Orthodox Jews, who need separate dairy and meat ovens, sinks, countertops, dishes and utensils?
Will it have room for innovations such as toaster ovens and smart pressure cookers (e.g. the famous Instant Pot)? What about when culture changes and show kitchens become a thing?
On the other hand, the so-called ‘senseless chaos’ of the world means treating each particular installation as its own thing.
> The notion of a regularly constructed reality corresponds to the principles of functionalism and rationality conditioned by industrial production processes. Both objects and people were to conform to these principles.
There’s another problem: demanding that people conform to the principles of industrial production processes. Every one is different in his own way — there is no average man. And it’s a short, terrible step from a system which demands that people conform to one which destroys those who don’t.
detourdog 1 days ago [-]
This is the exact line I'm trying to walk. My thinking is that small run manufacturing may actually be more efficient than centralized mass production.
My focus is entirely based on my addressable market. That market is a small rural New England college town. It's may be hard to see but the cabinetry is designed to work in any of the 8 apartments and since they are manufactured on-sire I customize for each tenant as they come through. A few of my tenants have requested specialized features and I have accommodated those requests.
I'm still in the start-up phase. I believe each individualized request my resonate with a future tenant and I will eventually have a catalog of cabinetry for the tenants to choose from.
arraypad 1 days ago [-]
For those in the UK, you can see a Frankfurt Kitchen on display at the new V&A East Storehouse in London:
Thanks for this I had never seen the Joe Columbo mini-kitchen. Looks just like his taboret.
esafak 1 days ago [-]
It looks so familiar; like something from IKEA. Then I read that it is modeled after railway dining car kitchens and it made even more sense. Today we just call it a galley kitchen.
boyka 1 days ago [-]
Frankfurt kitchen without a shower?
detourdog 1 days ago [-]
The shower is around the corner I just uploaded the bathroom pictures to the same URL.
SamBam 1 days ago [-]
I think the parent comment was referring to the original article. (You keep replying to comments throughout this forum as if people are talking about your personal project, which is confusing.)
detourdog 1 days ago [-]
Sorry about that. I'm just excited to see something so relevent to what I'm working on. I'm trying to contrast the comments about the original with the details I considered while trying to modernize.
lifestyleguru 1 days ago [-]
Why worry about a shower if you're not qualifying for the rental anyway?
detourdog 1 days ago [-]
What does the mean?
lifestyleguru 1 days ago [-]
A joke about renting an apartment in Frankfurt, or in any major German city.
detourdog 1 days ago [-]
I get it now... sorry.
SamBam 1 days ago [-]
From the ergonomics of those shelf handles, I assume those are boxes that are designed to be pulled out entirely. Are they supposed to store pantry items -- bags of flour and such? Regardless, I feel like I need a wall like that in my little basement workshop.
detourdog 1 days ago [-]
Yes, they were labled for period appropriate cooking supplies.
ginko 1 days ago [-]
If you're ever in Vienna you can visit Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky's own apartment she designed herself in the late 60s and lived in for her last 30 years.
I grew up in Frankfurt/Main's Hellerhofsiedlung - and in the 1980s, a (smaller) variant of this was still the standard kitchen in those apartments. We moved out in the mid-1980s, when I was still a kid ... but the photo alone brings back memories (though ours had some 1970s-style 'Prilblumen'-chique[1]. Turns out "form over function" did not appeal to the audience... No architectural or industrial design act – but stickers! Popular subversion. A people’s décor.)
What this article does not go into depth in about is how related furniture was to kitchen appliances - e.g. the furniture had a built-in bread-cutter (think 'saw blade with a hand-jank').
[1] Tried to find an article in English, but basically a dishwasher detergent company added flower-style stickers to their product - and that became a bit of a cultural movement in the 1970s/1980s. Related ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYpK0A6k5oQ
detourdog 1 days ago [-]
This is the where I'm headed I have small run manufacturing set-up in the schools old gym. Thank you for the link(seemed to be dish soap commercial).
throw0101d 1 days ago [-]
See also:
> The Neues Bauen architects were motivated by the desire to build healthy human settlements with access to clean air and light. Purely decorative architecture was rejected and the technology used to build industrial buildings was deployed for the construction of housing estates. The kitchen design of Schütte-Lihotzky was first installed in housing estates that were built in Frankfurt between 1926 and 1932. The Frankfurt kitchen was part of a new layout for apartments with gas stoves and central heating.[6]
Its design exhibits a very dense funtional pragmatism that makes it look like a laboratory or even bomb shelter to me.
detourdog 1 days ago [-]
I'm using a lot of wood to make reduce the coldness. The original kitchen was about rapid production at the lowest price. I only have to worry about 8 apartments and the manufacturing is on-site. I see this as way to bring humanity into modern design.
My overall business plan is small run manufacturing to exact user specifications. The basic question I'm asking is "why should the dimension of our appliances be standardized."
autobodie 1 days ago [-]
They aren't replying to you. I sure hope you don't berate your poor tenants like you are commenters in this thread. You're a landlord, not a hero.
detourdog 1 days ago [-]
I have no idea what you are talking about. Please help me understand where you are coming from. I thought I was discussing my design choices against the original design and it's constraints.
Some people seem to be offended that I'm commenting too much. Every comment I have made has been about the Frankfurt kitchen and how I have been inspired by it.
If someone feels I have berated them please let me know.
autobodie 1 days ago [-]
If you like the kitchen so much then build one for yourself?
detourdog 1 days ago [-]
Haven’t I demonstrated that I have built 8 of them?
Now I understand where you are coming from.
Rendered at 21:45:42 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B2dGlxzuqGlJoT7
The 2.0 kitchen countertops will be made of white oak planks like a farm table top. This will be more durable than the formica.
Here is a url with a lot of the construction photos.
https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B2dGIcgc2GugpW3
http://bbs.cogs.com
I'm really excited to be on the other side of the hard work. I want to organize the images into a website. If you are ever in the area I would be happy to show you.
This is why modern apartments have big bathrooms with copious flat space around the sink and good looking living spaces but when you actually live in them you'll find out there's not enough room to scoot around your wife's thicc ass while she's digging for something in the fridge or any attempt to host a party becomes an instant game of human bumper cars due to the traffic paths to the drinks, bathroom, main room. Many times you'll even find that these apartments can only be furnished with minimalist aesthetics while there is technically room for standard furniture and appliance sets they make the spaces unusable. Women don't get exited about the kind of "there's space on this wall for a 80" TV and if we put the beer on the left side of the fridge you can reach it without getting off the couch" and "look at all these kitchen cabinets, I'll never pull out a pan to find that it's dirty from oil/dust" raw practicality type stuff that men do and will happily trade it away to make a more aesthetic space. Men will also much more readily live in older construction and place less value upon "new" or "new-ish" so there's a healthy amount of "what new buyers want vs what used buyers want" discrepancy going on too.
Source: Too much time listening to the guy who sells the cabinets for these new apartments.
Most new apartments are strictly divided into tiers—singles and students in their early twenties with very little money; couples without children (yet), but lots of disposable income; families with one or two children, and a double income; and elderly couples. If you don’t fall into these demographics, you’re bound for a rough time.
These units are available for at will tenancy(no lease). My plan is to raise the rent on turn over rather than nickel and dime the existing tenants.
> That sounds… wildly specific to the US.
There’s a lot of active adult 55+ and no kid neighborhoods. I wonder how they compare to what OP describes, I’ve never been in one.
I wanted to get all the units finished before I start the redesign process. I have gotten good feedback from the users over the past 2 years. I'm about to post the last unit for rent. Once that is done I will start work on the refinements.
> Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky continued to design kitchens. Her mid-20th century designs incorporated electrical appliances while continuing to rely on methods for efficiency advanced by Frederick Winslow Taylor and Christine Frederick.[8]
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_kitchen#Influence_on...
And perhaps:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitchen_work_triangle
Did you mean ascetic? I’m trying to figure out what you meant but I’m not sure, because ascetic kind of contradicts the other descriptors.
Edit: just saw the other comment. I suppose they meant “aesthetically pleasing”.
The trouble with this is the implicit assumption that planned order is better. If there’s a plan, then there must be a planner, who is after all only human. He’ll have his own biases, his own emotions. And he won’t have all the information he needs. He might plan a kitchen which works really, really well for a family of four, but will it work for a bachelor? Will it work for Orthodox Jews, who need separate dairy and meat ovens, sinks, countertops, dishes and utensils?
Will it have room for innovations such as toaster ovens and smart pressure cookers (e.g. the famous Instant Pot)? What about when culture changes and show kitchens become a thing?
On the other hand, the so-called ‘senseless chaos’ of the world means treating each particular installation as its own thing.
> The notion of a regularly constructed reality corresponds to the principles of functionalism and rationality conditioned by industrial production processes. Both objects and people were to conform to these principles.
There’s another problem: demanding that people conform to the principles of industrial production processes. Every one is different in his own way — there is no average man. And it’s a short, terrible step from a system which demands that people conform to one which destroys those who don’t.
My focus is entirely based on my addressable market. That market is a small rural New England college town. It's may be hard to see but the cabinetry is designed to work in any of the 8 apartments and since they are manufactured on-sire I customize for each tenant as they come through. A few of my tenants have requested specialized features and I have accommodated those requests.
I'm still in the start-up phase. I believe each individualized request my resonate with a future tenant and I will eventually have a catalog of cabinetry for the tenants to choose from.
https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O121079/frankfurt-kitchen...
I could only find the French version on YouTube:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3z7UmTekGqM
https://www.schuette-lihotzky.at/de/zentrum/die-wohnung/
What this article does not go into depth in about is how related furniture was to kitchen appliances - e.g. the furniture had a built-in bread-cutter (think 'saw blade with a hand-jank').
[1] Tried to find an article in English, but basically a dishwasher detergent company added flower-style stickers to their product - and that became a bit of a cultural movement in the 1970s/1980s. Related ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYpK0A6k5oQ
> The Neues Bauen architects were motivated by the desire to build healthy human settlements with access to clean air and light. Purely decorative architecture was rejected and the technology used to build industrial buildings was deployed for the construction of housing estates. The kitchen design of Schütte-Lihotzky was first installed in housing estates that were built in Frankfurt between 1926 and 1932. The Frankfurt kitchen was part of a new layout for apartments with gas stoves and central heating.[6]
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_kitchen
My overall business plan is small run manufacturing to exact user specifications. The basic question I'm asking is "why should the dimension of our appliances be standardized."
Some people seem to be offended that I'm commenting too much. Every comment I have made has been about the Frankfurt kitchen and how I have been inspired by it.
If someone feels I have berated them please let me know.
Now I understand where you are coming from.