Eating is part and parcel of our daily life, and eating spaces must be considered as architects prepare house plans in Kenya. Whether at home or work, the eating experience is one we undertake within the confines of a given environment, whether indoors or outdoors. The dining area is the place where we carry out this process.

House plans in Kenya; Design of the Dining Area

modern dining room design

In the process of creating house plans in Kenya, an architect needs to consider activities that take place in context of each other, and every time there is something happening in one part of the home vis a vis the other. When people are using the living area, they will tend to sit comfortably and interact, watch TV, entertain themselves or guests to the home, rest in semi-enclosed areas such as the patio or balcony, as well as simply eat. Therefore activities that are ancillary to the main living area must accessorize the space, to make it all inclusive and sustainable. These must be appropriately located right at the creation of the house plans.

It is with this in mind that the architect or interior designer must come up with the most suitable spatial arrangement that allows all these functions to flow into each other and hence ensure the strongest relativity between the spaces. The dining space finds much utility in the context of the living room, and enjoys a lot of shared activity between the two spaces. It therefore needs to be designed as a space that flows into the living area. House plans in Kenya have traditionally displayed this kind of interconnectivity as the relationship is natural and consistent with the Kenyan way of life.

Dining space is space that is basically used for eating and drinking in the context of house plans in Kenya. Depending on the sort of preference a user has, this can be a relatively informal space consisting of a simple counter and adjoining chairs or stools, or a more complicated autonomous room complete with its own trappings.

Trends in dining room provision within house plans in Kenya

A popular trend in modern architecture has been to incorporate an eating counter in proximity to the kitchen area. This kind of residential ambience has been to created by designing the entire living room, kitchen space and dining space in an open plan configuration. This type of house plan in Kenya has not been very prevalent and it is only in modern times that we have seen the creation of apartments and large residences with this kind of design.

One of the key advantages of the open plan design for the living room, dining room and kitchen is that it can create a much larger illusion of space than comparable rooms with hard wall demarcations. The partition walls between these spaces cause users to perceive each of the spaces on its own, giving them a much smaller scale. However if these spaces flow into each other, they appear to have amalgamated together, hence they read as one large space. The resultant is that a lounge which would have otherwise felt tiny feels that much more enlarged. In addition the spaces borrow light from each other, and may have less lighting requirements and better ventilation.

Of course one of the key advantages of the open plan arrangement in house plans in Kenya is that one can be in both spaces at the same time. One can be in the kitchen and freely interact with visitors in the living room, and thereafter enjoy a meal together all in the same space. This wonderful advantage can be a liability as regards privacy, as all the spaces flow into each other and do not lend themselves to a good privacy gradient. Should you burn food in the oven while cooking, your visitors will definitely know about it!

The traditional way of placing dining rooms while designing house plans in Kenya has been to create them in a semi-demarcated manner, adjacent to the living room. The dining space definitely requires having some form of access from the kitchen, and the incorporation of a servery or serving hatch has been a boon to many homes, creating ease of communication between the two rooms. The servery acts as the point of bringing food to the table and reduces the distance of having to carry hot utensils from the kitchen to the point of food consumption.

A good dining room needs to be in proximity to hand wash basins, to ensure that one can quickly freshen up before tending to the meal table. This can be alleviated by ensuring that the cloakroom, which has a water point be placed in close proximity of the dining room too. This will ensure that it doubles up as a utility zone where one can clean hands before a meal.

Furniture Layouts in Dining Spaces of house plans in Kenya.

The traditional concept of dining is that it is done always within a communal setting, and the family comes together at meal times. With this in mind, it seems that everyone comes together around the meal, with it taking up the position of primacy. Therefore, the most successful furniture layout within the dining space is the one that enhances this arrangement, creating interactivity between the users around a common focus. Regardless of modern trends which seem to favor smaller families the world over, the concept of dining in common is one that Kenyan households embrace wholeheartedly.

There are various ways of creating dining room furniture layouts while designing house plans in Kenya. The use of round tables with seating all around it is the most traditional and basic. Modern trends have also seen the embracing of dining round the kitchen counter in addition to a formal eating place. These kinds of configurations are basically linear, but can be employed creatively within the dining space. The breakfast nook is one such linear arrangement that has made reasonable presence in the Kenyan house plan.

Dining Space Provision is important when creating house plans in Kenya.

Creating house plans is a balancing act between the modern and the traditional, ensuring that the spaces so encompassed work together to its success. The dining area is a key feature of residential developments, and its provision as a space should be emphasized when creating house plans in Kenya.