THE GOODS : Culinary Art : Students Toss Out Old Shapes and Old Ideas to Bring Appliances Into the 21st Century

Is there any reason why the kitchen stove has to be planted in the kitchen?

Wouldn’t it be handy to have a little tabletop dishwasher for small loads?

And what about an ambidextrous coffee/tea maker to simplify serving beverages? Or an ultrasound blender that doesn’t require blades?

These are some of the questions students at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena asked as they worked on counter-top appliances for the kitchen of the 21st century. Their models will be on display at the International Housewares Show, which opens Jan. 14 in Chicago’s McCormick Place.

The project offers a look at appliances to come--a stylish array of blenders and cookers and cutters using magnetic induction, ultrasound, lasers and high-speed water jets. Reflecting the needs of changing lifestyles, they are as revolutionary as their predecessor, the microwave oven.

“We want to show consumers where we have been and where we are going,” said Al Correa of Whirlpool Corp., which will exhibit the futuristic appliances. Whirlpool is a leading manufacturer of home appliances, and its KitchenAid division sponsored the Art Center project. “We like to stay on the leading edge,” said Correa, director of the corporation’s Industrial Design Center in Benton Harbor, Mich., which has a staff of 18.

“We want to change the shape of the kitchen. It has become the focal point of the house, but if you look at a kitchen, you still see the same square rectangular designs with confusing control panels. We want to create designs that delight our customers and make their lives easier.”

This was the agenda Whirlpool presented to the Art Center students. “Our mandate was to look into the future, not just fine-tune existing ideas--their own designers can do that,” said Katherine Bennett, who teaches advanced product design. She directed research for the Whirlpool project, which included market research, hands-on experience with a guest chef, and technological study of materials and manufacturing.

The students turned up a number of consumer trends: the average person has less time for cooking than ever before and cooks with less skill, they found, but eats healthier food.

“We went to a lot of different kitchens--we asked all our friends if their mothers cooked a lot, and we got references,” said student James Choe. “We bothered everybody in the name of education.”

They also studied other countries, including Japan, where kitchens are very small. Even in America, kitchens are shrinking and becoming more open, like a living space rather than an isolated room for cooking. “In my mother’s generation,” Choe said, “the kitchen was a special place and not many guys would go in there.”

He designed a cluster of cordless, burner-size portable cooking surfaces after he realized how many people ate while sitting in front of the TV set. “It’s small and efficient and battery-charged,” he said. “The stove in the kitchen takes a lot of space and is just parked there. I envision myself cooking anywhere.”

Student Joe Del Rosario’s team research included posting a note on the Internet for feedback on KitchenAid. “We were surprised at how much people know about their appliances,” he said. “People said things like they liked the blades on their mixer because they are ceramic. People show off these appliances, like icons.”

His design team also got practical feedback, such as how hard it is to clean a blender. So they came up with a bladeless blender that uses ultrasonic waves for mixing. They got rid of the big kitchen stove with a design for a three-chamber cooker with separate control panels, and designed an induction-charged tool for grinding spices, mixing and beating.

And when they learned that food processors often bruise the fruit or vegetables being sliced or diced, they used high-speed water jets for a cutting board that leaves no marks.

“We were thinking about the kitchen in the year 2000,” Del Rosario said. “We found that the kitchens are becoming more open to the rest of the house and are an entertainment area.”

Actually, Bennett said, today’s kitchen is a dichotomy, an eat-and-run site for busy families during the week and a weekend showplace. “These baby boomers having kids late are into the cocooning trend. People are entertaining more at home and are learning more about gourmet cooking. And they want the best--look at a place like Williams-Sonoma or Crate & Barrel and you will see that we are interested in better design and higher-end appliances.”

It is these trends that point to a kitchen of the future that will not only be functional, but will be a pleasure to look at, she added. “As the world becomes an increasingly scary place, from what we see on the news, to the pressures in the office, our homes will continue to become well-upholstered places of relief.”

Aesthetically, the need to surround ourselves with objects that are not only functional but also beautiful has already invaded the kitchen, she said. “And what the students learned is that the kitchen might start invading other parts of the house.”

Although Whirlpool will show many of the prototypes at the housewares show, they are not yet working models, Correa said. The ideas, which are the property of the student designers, are doable, he said, but presently too futuristic to manufacture for a mass market.

“It’s like the automobile industry with their concept cars,” he said. “No pun intended, but the models will be put on the back burner and we’ll see what develops.”