Bruynzeel & Arte concept kitchen

The kitchen market has traditionally been divided into separate segments: cabinet suppliers, appliance manufacturers, worktop specialists and installers. Because innovation often takes place within these individual segments rather than from an overarching perspective, opportunities for more integrated innovation can easily be overlooked.

Worktop specialist Arte approached VanBerlo and Bruynzeel Keukens to explore kitchen innovation from a more holistic perspective and develop solutions that crossed traditional segment boundaries.

Inspired by the functionalist principles behind Piet Zwart’s pioneering 1930s kitchen designs for Bruynzeel, I worked as lead designer at VanBerlo (now part of Accenture) with Arte and Bruynzeel to investigate how kitchens are used, where opportunities for innovation lie and what those opportunities could look like. Sketch visualisations and prototypes were essential tools: they quickly made potential solutions tangible and enabled early market feedback.

The integrated approach and co-creation process generated insights and ideas that directly and indirectly contributed to improvements across the participants’ product ranges.