Designing dining areas – home layouts guide, Property interior design, House focal space style
Designing Dining Areas: How Home Layouts Influence the Cooking and Eating Experience
14 December 2023
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The dining room is the heartbeat of any home. It’s where we hold dinner parties and enjoy holiday hosting with family and friends, let alone the casual everyday meals. At Edinburgh Architecture, we understand this best.
In recent years, lifestyle priorities have shifted, and traditional formal designs are losing the popularity they used to have. In addition to enjoying meals with family and friends, the dining area has become a valued space for conversation, recollection, and great stories.
It’s for these reasons that the design of the dining area is important. Most modern home designers embrace the open dining space, which is an extension of the kitchen. Even for those with small dining rooms, the design affects food preparation and the eating experience.
There are numerous ways to design a dining room. From the lighting and furniture to the area rugs and wall decor, the area deserves a setup that blends well with the overall home theme. Some experts embrace a multidisciplinary approach called “affordances.” This concept is well-understood in many fields, including architecture and health.
In this post, we’ll explain how the layout of the dining area affects the overall food preparation and more.
Dining Area Design and Its Impact on Cooking and Eating Experiences
In dining area applications, affordances refer to the properties of an environment and the human-environment connections that support activities and functions. This concept has brought attention to a space’s possibilities for and with its occupants.
For example, in the preparation and layout of foods, adequate space is necessary. Companies dealing with Organic Foods understand this concept well. Some organic foodstuffs include whole foods like nuts and seeds, whole flours like potato flour and almond flour, and more.
A well-designed dining area promotes mindful eating while enhancing family meal practices. Many studies have highlighted the key role of a dining table and its physical setting in improving family meal practices.
Dining Table
A dining table plays a crucial role in congregation and socialisation among households. It also provides structured and routine family meals, contributing to positive, mindful dining experiences.
Therefore, it implies that where dining space is insufficient in a residential setup, the lack of a family-size dining table might affect family eating practices. Besides, sitting and having a family meal together at a table in an organised manner can achieve the following:
- Quality family interactions
- Enhancing socio-cultural values and norms
- Lowering body mass index of children and parents, thereby minimising obesity
- Leading to higher fruit and vegetable intake
- Promoting better nutritional health in younger and older children
Additionally, physical components of a dining table, such as size, surface material, and the number of seats it can accommodate, can affect food intake. The same idea applies to some behavioural features, such as social norms and setting expectations.
TV as a Distraction in the Dining Area
Experts in home design and scholars agree that TV is a potential distraction during mealtime. Whether turned on as background noise in the dining area or the adjacent room, TV is associated with higher chances of high fat intake in beverages and snacks.
Besides, TV viewing is considered a risk factor for obesity and overweight in children and adolescents. It’s therefore recommended to minimise distractions brought by TV in the dining space.
Dressing a Dining Room to Maximize Cooking and Eating Experience
As noted in the example above, how a dining area is designed affects the overall atmosphere of the space. For storage, we recommend including console tables and built-in shelving systems. Similarly, you can set aside a space for a stylish home bar.
The dining space should also have mood enhancers such as framed artwork, cute tabletop decor, ceramic vases, luxe candlesticks, and potted houseplants. Budget-friendly ideas also work, where you may choose to arrange a gallery wall or paint the walls a fresh colour. You can also drape the space with dining-friendly curtains.
Designing Dining Areas: How Home Layouts Influence – Final Thoughts
The design of the dining area is a crucial step to observe when setting up a home. With our tips in this post, you can improve your own dining space or help a friend with theirs. The influential design features of the space include size and layout, connection to other spaces, fittings, and fixtures.
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