SBEA 3843

ARCHIECTURAL AND HUMAN BEHAVIOUR

ASSIGNMENT 1:

UNDERSTANDING HOUSING FROM THE CONCEPT OF

PERSON-ENVIRONMENT STUDIES

NAME
MATRIC NO
IC NO
LECTURERS NAME

: MOHAMED AZRI FIKRI BIN ABD RAZAK

: A13BE0065
: 941008-075811
: PM DR MAHMUD BIN JUSAN

INTRODUCTION
For this semester, the main focus of the person-environment studies is
according to the housing designs are for people, not for designer. In this assignment,
the focus of the study is about the principal or theories that should be apply in
designing the kitchen in domestic house. The kitchen can be define as the central
domestic space where food is prepared and cooked and at times consumed is very
significant in a household.
Person-environment Studies (PES), a category in much more field of
environmental psychology. Person- Environment Studies is oriented towards
influencing the work of design professionals as to improve human environment which
include the human behaviour in the whole life and also the human need. There are
some of the model that show the important of the human need in someone life for
example, the Maslow theory that start from physiological, safety, belonging, esteem
and lastly self-actualization. In this assignment, the comparison of the kitchen design
principal are based on the person-environment studies.

THEORY
1. Kitchen Design.
Kitchen designs are not the same as other universal design problems
because of the limited flexibility in appliances and work layout. it does not
prescribe a final state, it is ongoing and its solutions are never finished. noninclusive and do not allow equal participation of all family members. kitchen
design should be adaptable to suit different installations.
2. Designer Responsibility.
Designer is responsible for exploring the correlations between user
needs and design specifications. While able-bodied users experience
minimal difficulties, children, pregnant women, the elderly, people with
physical, visual and/or hearing impairments and seated users face diverse
challenges regarding kitchen layouts such as gaining access to cabinets and
storage areas, reaching counters, using appliances and operating controls.
3. Multi-User Nature.

The multi-user nature of kitchens in the private housing context

encompasses the complexity of design activities that require an inclusive
understanding. Designers should be informed about user needs and
capabilities as early as possible in order to address all these challenges and
create an ideal kitchen environment.
4. Work Triangle.
The size should be such that it neither exceeds nor deseeds the work
triangle path i.e. the sum of sides of the worth triangle between sink, cooking
and preparation centre should not exceed 7 meter. kitchen layout was states
that the perimeter of the work triangle should not exceed 7 metres. smaller
kitchens tended to contain smaller triangles while larger kitchens had larger
triangles and but more flexibility in layout. Although larger kitchens give more
space for units, equipment and an optimum layout, smaller more compact
designs normally require less movement to carry out everyday tasks.
5. Kitchen Environment.
The kitchen environment needs to be both comfortable and usable if it
is to support independent living for older people.
6. Appliance.
The appliance and kitchen design industries have been working to use
appliances to communicate with each other and with users. The approach is
to annotate the entire kitchen space for the many purposes that were not
designed to be contemporaneous but often are.
7. Size of Kitchen.
The minimum area recommended by the architects for the kitchen is
120 sq. feet. The size of kitchen should be considered by keeping in mind
the following factors viz. availability of space, size of family and so on.
8. Work Surface Height and Design.
To accommodate the different tasks to be done in the kitchen and the
people of different heights doing them, counter surfaces should either be
adjustable or set at various heights. Proper work surface height minimizes
excessive forward bending and shoulder elevation. For tasks requiring close
visual inspection, position the surface height so that hands are slightly higher
than elbow height and below shoulder level. For most tasks, the work

surface should be slightly below elbow height. Work requiring force, such as
kneading bread, rolling.
9. Floors.
The work surfaces should be durable, neat, non- absorbent, stain
resistant and easy to clean. Prolonged standing on hard work surfaces can
create contact trauma and pain in the feet. A cushioned floor surface such as
cork or linoleum is best, and it minimizes breakage when things are dropped.
If the floor is hard, such as tile, use anti-fatigue mats or cushioned rugs to
increase blood flow to the feet and to reduce fatigue.
10. Lighting.
In addition to general lighting, every work surface should be well
illuminated by task lighting. Refrigerators and freezers are no longer limited
to just one location. New designs incorporate drawers that are tucked under
the counter and are readily accessible by cooks of all abilities, ages, and
sizes. If you're buying a standard refrigerator, designs with the freezer on the
bottom are best, with most commonly used foods on the top shelf for easy
access. Dishwashers are available as drawer models to reduce bending. the
area near to the kitchen sink has the most light on average as this is where
the kitchen window is normally located. Glare-free task lighting to illuminate
work areas without too much reflectivity.

11. Reaching.
Minimize reaching by organizing your work environment so that most
cooking processes can be completed within easy reach while keeping your
elbows close to your body.12 Place most commonly used tools within easy
reach.8 Assemble all ingredients and utensils needed before cooking near
the work centre, similar to preparing a lab for an experiment
.
12. Standing.
Static postures cause blood to pool in the lower extremities, resulting in
muscle fatigue and pain. Cooks often stand in one position while cooking or
preparing food. Avoid static postures by continually changing your position.

Use a foot rest or a stool to help alter your posture, resting one foot and then
the other.
13. Renovated Space.
Kitchen and a separate wet kitchen kitchen is one of the favourite
renovated spaces in local housing development. Nearly all of the houses
added a wet kitchen to facilitate cooking and washing where homeowners
found there is a crucial need for a bigger. The former kitchen was
transformed into a dry kitchen and was installed with built-in kitchen
cabinets. Most homeowners pointed out that the dry kitchen was only used
for warming up food (using the oven) and functions more to impress guests,
as indication of their status.
14. Multi-Use Kitchen.
In multi-use kitchens, information should be targeted to specific c tasks
and permit multiple users to move within the space while their information
follows them. Information table is an example of orienting imagery to follow
users as they move through the space and perform different tasks.
15. Kitchen Efficiency.
The secret of kitchen efficiency, according to Frederick, was to arrange
all you will need for the cooking of a meal on one side of the kitchen and all
you need for dish-washing on the opposite side. By effectively contrasting
the efficient, step-saving arrangement of kitchen cabinets, sink and cookingrange to the inefficient arrangement in which a housewife criss-crosses the
kitchen when preparing a meal and doing the dishes, she claries her point.
Without the help of a servant, a professional housewife was capable of
managing the household on her own. Providing that the housewife could rely
on new electrical appliances like a vacuum cleaner and a washing machine.
Frederick claimed that these machines were more reliable and certainly
more efficient, than the ever troublesome domestic servant.
16. Hygiene.
Although concerns are often expressed about the risks vs. benefits of
using antimicrobial products in the home, the results of this and the previous
study (Cogan et al. 1999) suggest that, to achieve a satisfactory level of
hygiene in a situation such as handling of raw food in a domestic kitchen,

where a hygiene failure carries a high risk of serious consequences, the use
of a chemical disinfectant may be advisable.
17. Safety and Ergonomics.
There is more to address than just cooking. How the home owners
enter the home and unloads their groceries is an important, and often
overlooked, design consideration. Locating the refrigerator and pantry near
the entry of the kitchen (and preferably near some countertop) makes a
kitchen work much more smoothly in general. Safety for all, including young
children is another consideration. Layout should avoid creating a
thoroughfare so that people arent trafficking through the kitchen when hot
pots and knifes are in use etc. Hot water temperature no more than 55
degrees, no Sharp corners, no handles that stick out or can catch clothing.
18. Colour.
Contrasting colour border treatment on countertops: colour or contrast
difference that facilitates recognition of the edges of counters and the
different heights to prevent accidental spills.
19. Ventilation.
In ventilation design it means evaluation of indoor climate including
target value adjustment for temperature, humidity and air movement. It
would be useful to classify indoor climate requirements in every section of
the kitchen, to facilitate target value adjustment. Especially ventilation design
is a very challenging task. High cooling loads and air flow rates demand
accurate design. In commercial kitchens it is useful to keep heat gains as
low level as possible, because heat gains have an immediate effect on air
flow rates, ventilation system requirements, thermal conditions and energy
economy.
20. Kitchen Layout.
The basic assumption in developing the kitchen layout design tool was
that there exists common operational features in the kitchens of same type
and same cooking process. To utilise these common features it is necessary
to examine and divide these features into smaller parts and form a default
data library. The basic menu offerings, serving times, size and number of
portions and necessary sections with sufficient space requirements are all

characteristics of the kitchen type. The process type, in turn, determines the
space and equipment requirements for the facility.

REFERENCES
1. Yasemin Afacana et al, (2011), Journal of Engineering Design: A prioritybased approach for satisfying the diverse users needs, capabilities and
expectations: a universal kitchen design case, Vol. 21, Nos. 23, AprilJune
2010, 315343.
2. Martin Maguire et al, (2014),: International Journal of Design: Kitchen Living
in Later Life: Exploring Ergonomic Problems, Coping Strategies and Design
Solutions, Vol. 8 No. 1 2014.
3. Jatinder Kishtwaria et al, (2007), Ergonomic Evaluation of Kitchen Work with
Reference to Space Designing.
4. Tamara Mitchell, Sally Longyear, The Ergonomics of Cooking and Kitchen
Design.
5. Nurdalila Binti Saji, (2012), Journal of Sustainable Development : A Review of
Malaysian Terraced House Design and the Tendency of Changing, Vol. 5, No.
5.
6. Irene Cieraad, (2010), The Journal of Architecture: Out of my kitchen!
Architecture, gender and domestic efficiency, Vol. 7.
7. T.A. Cogan et al, (2002), Journal of Applied Microbiology: Achieving hygiene
in the domestic kitchen: the effectiveness of commonly used cleaning
procedures.
8. Ronald L. Mace, (2010), Assistive Technology: Universal Design in Housing,
ISSN: 1040-0435.
9. Tuomas Laine et al, Kitchen Design Tool: An Integrated Environment for
Layout and Ventilation Design.
10. Leonardo Bonanni et al, (2006), Digital Creativity: The kitchen as a graphical
user interface, Vol. 16, No. 2, pp. 110114.