Seasons Plan 496-2 — is not a new idea.
The modern habit of combining cooking, dining, and living functions in one space harks back to the early American home, where everything was done beside a large open hearth,
as illustrated at the University of Pittsburgh’s Cathedral of Learning (in one of the so-called Nationality Rooms, which you can visit). It was a “Great Room” before there was such a concept. Later kitchens became separated or closed off from the rest of the house partly to protect from fire and partly to accommodate emerging systems and equipment like indoor plumbing and new-fangled appliances. The kitchen became more specialized. In their book The American Woman’s Home , published in 1869, two famous sisters — Catherine Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe — argued for efficiency. Their ideal design provided separate areas for storage, food preparation, and cooking.
They set the kitchen apart as a kind of laboratory (see the University of Houston for more about this book.)
But by the mid twentieth century an interest in more casual arrangements along with the rise of venting devices like fans (to evacuate cooking odors) lead to the dining or family-kitchen,
like this one by ranch house designer Cliff May from the 1940s, with its kitchen pass-through and big Colonial style hearth that also includes a modern barbecue (presumably the rifle is just an accessory).
More recently the advent of quieter dishwashers and refrigerators has made it possible to make the kitchen part of a larger entertaining space, as we have seen with the Meyer design. Throw the fire back in, along with walls that disappear to unite inside and outside
and you might get the Colonial/ranch house kitchen — “Part Deux.” This 21st century example was designed by Sebastian Mariscal Studio (photo courtesy the same).
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