It would be impossible to cover all aspects of room layout in Interior Design right here, it would take a full course in the subject and a library of good books to fully explain all the theories, techniques and approaches involved. What we can do is look at the basics of room layout focusing on the function of the room and the activities that take place there in order to meet the needs of the potential user, a beginner's guide to interior design room layout if you will. As each room/space functions differently and involves different activities we have created a separate section for each space, although there will be some overlap with generally accepted rules appearing on a number of occasions.
Kitchen Layout:
The kitchen is normally one of the most used rooms in a house and an efficient kitchen can be key to having a happy life. But what makes an efficient kitchen? You start with the work triangle. The kitchen work triangle is one of the most researched and applied ergonomic principles around and is the centrepiece of most kitchen layouts. The three points in the triangle are the Refrigerator, the sink and the oven. The idea of the kitchen work triangle is to position these three work points the most efficient distance apart with minimal traffic through the work zone between them.
If you place these too far away from each other you waste a lot of steps while preparing food while if they are too close to each other you create a cramped kitchen workspace which is uncomfortable to use. The rules to the work triangle are...
Each leg of the triangle should be between 4ft and 9ft
The total of all three legs should be at least 12ft and no more than 26ft
Nothing, such as cabinets, presses, storage units or islands, should intersect a leg of the work triangle
Household traffic, such as pathways between rooms, should not flow through the work triangle
Aside from the kitchen work triangle the other key consideration when designing a kitchen is storage. More than any other household space the kitchen requires a large amount of storage space and depending on the style of the design how you use/create space for storage will have a large bearing on how the space is laid out. Workspace, such as countertops is also an important factor to consider in kitchen design and it is directly related to storage space as it is usually floor cabinets which provide the counter-to work-space that we use. So while placing all the cabinets and units together on one wall would provide excellent storage there would be little or no worktop space.