The kitchen is one with more practical uses of space in the home. A place to store foodstuffs, prepare meals and cook dishes.
For some, a modern kitchen can also be a place to entertain guests or create memories with their loved ones.
This is where the layout of the kitchen becomes important. It can tremendously affect the functionality, storage space, flow, and purpose.
Here, we look at the 5 most common designs for HDB kitchen renovation and share our top design tips for your dream kitchen.
Before that, you must first determine what to focus on for your new kitchen.
Determine your priorities
Try asking yourself these questions:
Do you cook frequently?
| Cook a lot | Go for a more functional kitchen with ample storage space |
| Cook occasionally | Look out for space-saving designs or minimise unnecessary kitchen space |
| Seldom cook | Consider converting part of the kitchen into a living or dining area |
What is the dining space required?
| Single or couple | Minimum kitchen size needed, and enjoy yourselves at the little cosy dining table in the living area |
| Family with kids | Plan for more countertop spaces for easy and faster access to essentials |
| Entertain guests frequently | Consider an open kitchen to accommodate a serving counter or dining station |
With these considerations thought out, you will be better prepared to explore the following kitchen designs and find the one that suits you better.
Open-Concept Kitchen
Alright, the most commonly heard of ‘designers type’ kitchen design concept.
The concept of an open-concept HDB kitchen is for the kitchen space to join the living room. Sometimes, part of the kitchen walls or door may need to be removed.
This allows the kitchen to become an extension of the living room, creating a feeling of spaciousness in an otherwise small-sized HDB flat. Removing the wall also allows better airflow and often brightness of the entire place.
However, with the removal of the wall, we are removing the barrier that stops the cooking smells and oil aerosols from spreading as well.
Light cookings are still manageable, but frying with oil would often mean the lingering of cooking smell in the living area, especially on fabric materials such as curtains or linen sofas.
We can incorporate a half-wall with slide-and-hide windows instead to circumvent the cooking odour problem for the occasional urge to fry dishes. Or if the layout permits, sliding glass panels can also be used to separate the areas temporarily.
Let us now explore the 5 most common kitchen design layouts below.
Galley Kitchen
You will find the galley kitchen design everywhere. Being the most typical kitchen design for HDB homes, they are suitable for small kitchens, have the highest value-to-pricing ratio, and are aesthetically pleasing.
The galley kitchen is suitable for a long kitchen space, especially for those that require one to pass straight through the kitchen to reach the service yard at the back.
Wall cabinets, counters, refrigerators and other appliances are lined alongside a single wall, creating a simple line.
If space allows, both sides of the two walls can be used to build cabinetries. This will result in a long, narrow aisle as a central walkway.
Design Tips:
Always go for a two-sided galley kitchen if space allows. Even if you are looking for a minimum look, consider at least installing a bottom cabinet for one of the sides. In this way, you could minimally attain a kitchen triangle design.
A kitchen triangle design has the three most important elements within a kitchen: The kitchen sink, stove and refrigerator. These elements are then clustered in a triangular formation, creating the shortest non-overlapping path between them.
Therefore, if only a single-sided galley kitchen is used, an awkward situation will arise when you are forced to shuffle between these three elements within a straight line.
L-shaped Kitchen
Another popular design would be the L-shaped kitchen.
The layout is to have two adjacent walls lined with cabinetry, thereby forming a L-shape.
Compared to the two-sided galley kitchen mentioned previously, an L-shaped kitchen lets you see the entire kitchen with one glance. When done well, this will allow the homeowners’ taste to exude to the guests visiting the place via the kitchen designs.
However, the kitchen triangle would be a little skewed in this case. One of the three points will be slightly further than the rest, and more walking will be needed.
An L-shaped kitchen design has the opportunity to turn an otherwise wasted ‘dead-end’ into storage space, thus putting corners to better use.
While the L-shaped kitchen cabinets are often lined along the walls, the shorter leg of the ‘L’ can also extend into the centre of the kitchen space.
This is often found in older HDB homes with a private rubbish chute within the kitchen, where this extension can help to carve out a service yard area—effectively hiding the chute, washers and other mess behind the kitchen countertop.
Design Tips:
Be sure to look out for pull-out shelving system storage, which allows easy accessibility to corner storage within the cabinet. Accessing the L-shaped cabinet’s storage space in the corner will be difficult without this.
It is also important to note that a corner cabinet will cost double or even more compared to a normal cabinet. This is worth considering if you are budget-conscious for your upcoming renovation project.
U-shaped Kitchen
If you are blessed with a large or slightly more squared kitchen, we can consider a U-shaped kitchen design instead.
We can sometimes see these kitchen designs in larger flats, such as the Executive Apartment (EA) category. But they have become uncommon since EA were phased out in 2005.
As the name suggested, a U-shaped kitchen design has the cabinets lined in a U-shape.
This design overcame the challenge of the skewed kitchen triangle problem of the L-shaped kitchen.
This calls for a higher budget as there are two corners to fabricate for the cabinetries. But in return, the design allows for high flexibility and the foundation for a perfect kitchen triangle layout!
Do keep in mind that the U-shaped kitchen design allows you to have ample kitchen top and storage spaces at the expense of the walking area. If you like to cook with your partner or kids, you may find yourself bumping into one another occasionally. To avoid this, consider using other kitchen designs instead.
Design Tips:
As there are many bends in this design, make sure that your refrigerator door opens away from the route of your kitchen triangle. Some brands are starting to offer swappable refrigerator door designs in Singapore. Check them out at your nearest electrical retailers.
Island Kitchen
Many homeowners dreamt of having an island kitchen—the ideal entertaining place, storage and conversation starter.
A luxurious design that requires a larger-than-normal kitchen space.
Space, which unfortunately is not available for our standard HDB kitchen.
Fret not, there is still a possibility that you can remove the walls that adjoin the kitchen to your living room. The Open-concept kitchen we discussed right at the beginning allows you to make your island kitchen dream come true after all.
A kitchen island is a freestanding countertop that is accessible from all sides. Often complementary to the main kitchen cabinetries on the opposite, forming an ‘island’ off the ‘mainland’.
The kitchen island is almost like the galley kitchen design but has one of its sides deeper and more accessible. This allows for a much more flexible use of the countertop space made possible by the kitchen island.
For example, we can have one side of the island as the serving side, where people can drink or use it as a casual dining spot. Whereas the other side of the island is the preparation side, where the hosts can prepare the dishes while entertaining their guests.
Or you can return home with your groceries and place them on the kitchen island before freshening up a little in the bedroom. Returning to the kitchen later on the other side with all the groceries ready to be prepared or sorted.
Many used it simply as a breakfast bar or a space to place kitchen appliances. Some opted to have open shelving below it to maximise space as storage areas for kitchen accessories.
Design Tips:
The kitchen island concept for HDB is a relatively costly design. It entails knocking down the kitchen wall and often restrictive in terms of function. As HDB do not allow for concealed electrical and water piping, this will eliminate the possibility of adding a sink or electrical appliances on the island itself.
Take your time to work out a detailed design with your interior designer, this will ensure a consistent design element with the adjourning living area.
Peninsula Kitchen
To avoid the Island kitchen’s complex plumbing and electrical work, the Peninsula kitchen is a good alternative.
Recalling the previous section about the kitchen island, we have a centrepiece freely accessible from all four sides. Now, if we were to attach one end of the island to the wall – we would get a peninsula. The peninsula is therefore only accessible from three sides.
By giving up on the accessibility of just one of the sides, we now have more countertop space and storage available.
Plumbing and electrical can also be easily routed to the peninsula piece via the adjourning wall, significantly reducing complexity and costs.
At the same time, a peninsula kitchen enjoys almost as much utility and conversation-worthiness as the kitchen island. In fact, the peninsula kitchen is in itself a space-saving design!
Design Tips:
Be mindful that the centrepiece is no longer accessible from all sides. This means that getting to the kitchen’s end will now require a long walk around the peninsula.
This extended journey can often be forgiven for the space and money saved in return.
Designing the layout of your HDB Kitchen
No matter which kitchen layout designs you have selected (even uncommon or combination ones like L-island, G-shaped, Double L-shaped, etc.), the actual design of the content within the layout is just as important.
There are many details and variations possible, but let us look at a few important ones:
Utilise vertical space
Consider using the available vertical space. Apart from overhead cabinets, try experimenting with hanging racks or wall-mounted shelves.
Create a harmonious Kitchen Triangle
Besides the distance between the sink, stove and refrigerator, consider their sequences as well.
Many homeowners prefer having the refrigerator to be positioned nearest to the entrance of the kitchen for easy access. If we look at the sequence, the sink would probably be the ideal candidate next, followed by the stove.
Just imagine yourself doing all the steps of preparing your meal, and the best sequence should fall right into place.
The challenge is that half the time, the sink may not be at the right spot, as its placement is often determined by the position of the water inlet and outlet that came with the unit.
In this unfortunate case – the homeowner will either have to fork out extras to move the water inlet and outlet points, or live with the fridge being in a less-than-ideal position.
Select appropriate lighting
We may often prefer dim lighting to create a better ambience. However, the kitchen is an area where adequate lighting is crucial.
The kitchen is where the function is more important than the looks. We need adequate lighting for the many tasks like sorting, preparing, cutting and cooking.
Consider having at least two light sources for the kitchen space. This is to avoid having shadows, which can hinder precarious tasks such as cutting vegetables.
As we often rely on the colours of the food during food preparation, having neutral-coloured lighting will help us make a better and more reliable judgement.
Incorporate storage innovations
Storage innovations from pull-out drawers to corner cabinets with rotating shelves are a great way to optimise your kitchen layout. These innovations help to make hard-to-reach places much more accessible.
Remember that any place that is difficult to reach, will probably not be used often. When you have many such places, you will start complaining about a lack of (useful) space!
Ensure adequate ventilation
Lastly, make sure that you have enough ventilation for your kitchen.
A well-ventilated kitchen is crucial for maintaining a clean and odour-free experience. Furthermore, it reduces the buildup of moisture and oil grime, thus ensuring a healthier cooking environment.
Quality makes a difference
If you find the above information useful, we are glad to have helped. Every homeowner has unique dreams for their new flat. However, many HDB layouts can be similar due to space constraints.
Quality is one important element that can make your design stand out among the rest.
Even the humble plywood used by most custom cabinetries can have different qualities. A cabinet made with good quality material will elevate any design and ensure many years of enjoyment as well.
Be on the lookout for design firms or renovation contractors that use quality materials for their work. Ask for any certifications or at least a sample of their actual finished work. Your due diligence today will help go a long way tomorrow.
No matter where you are on your renovation journey, we will be here to help you along the way.
At FurnTec, we value innovation and we are the manufacturer of new age cabinetry material that is low in formaldehyde, scratch resistant, highly resistant to moisture and anti-termite at the same time.
If you would like explore in using FurnTec innovation in your next project, feel free to contact us at +65 8181 9917 and link us up with your preferred designer / renovation firm. Alternatively, we can also provide you with our preferred list of renovation partners for your selection.
