Design Matters at Naidex National Show House
Wednesday, May 9th, 2012
The team’s back from a great show at the NEC . Naidex National is the premier disability, rehabilitation and homecare event in the UK with over 300 exhibitors and thousands of visitors. This year it took place over three days at the prestigious Birmingham exhibition centre and we installed a fully featured kitchen in the Independent Living Show Home at the heart of the event.
This was a great opportunity to show how far accessible kitchens have come in recent years, and to exhibit a kitchen that might be fitted in a typical family home where both wheelchair users and ambulant family and friends could access the space. In the Naidex design, some worksurfaces are at fixed standard height, and others are height adjustable so that everyone has a comfortable place to prepare meals and drinks. All the important kitchen elements are fully accessible and importantly, a little safer. One day all kitchens could contain these features. Imagine how much landfill could be eliminated if all kitchens could be used by the whole family, for life!
Only ten years ago kitchen designers were struggling to break away from cold, clinical colour schemes. Now our designers have a full range of colours and wood finishes to choose from, and we’re not confined to delicate mfc (melamine faced chipboard). We can specify durable laminate doors on our kitchens (the same tough material commonly used for worktops) which will take knocks and scuffs from wheelchair footplates and walking frames in their stride. Kitchen cabinets can also be made to any dimension, which means they can be tailored to each client’s precise requirements, and still offer built-in flexibility. In the Naidex design above, we have specified midi-height storage units around the ovens, so that every cupboard can be accessed from a wheelchair or perching stool, and this height can be tailored to the reach of an individual client.
We specify a carefully curated range of appliances with extra safety features, including an oven with a door that slides into a recess beneath the oven cavity called the Neff SlideAway. In this kitchen we are also demonstrating an L-shaped rise and fall worktop, which accommodates both sink and induction hob. We are increasingly using this solution as it makes the essential elements of the kitchen accessible to every kitchen user and requires a single rise and fall hydraulic mechanism. We specify Ropox hydraulics which are durable and reliable. The rise and fall worktop is made to our own carefully developed design from a water resistant material called Corian. The sink area is equipped with front-mounted taps, and a convenient instant hot water tap – the modern, safer equivalent of the kettle. The designer extractor hood can be operated by remote control for ease and safety.
The Design Matters team chatted with hundreds of visitors during Naidex National. Next we’re looking forward to Naidex South in October, where this kitchen will be making a second appearance! If you’d like to keep in touch with us, you can ‘like’ our Facebook page which will ensure you get all our news on accessible kitchens, or follow us on Twitter - @designmatters3.
For more pictures and details of recent projects, visit the Portfolio pages of our web site. If you would like to discuss your own kitchen project, please contact us by email using this link or call us on the office number: 01628 531584 and make an appointment to see our fully accessible showroom. and meet Adam Thomas our award winning designer.
Access Matters Kitchens Now Available in Central Scotland
Tuesday, March 29th, 2011
We are delighted to announce that Ruby Slippers Solutions Ltd are now distributors of Access Matters kitchen furniture across Central Scotland.
Ruby Slippers specialises in helping people enjoy their homes for longer through careful design and planning. Working on principles of ‘ageless design’, they offer a full range of home improvements including kitchens, bathrooms, stair lifts and access ramps. Company founder Lisa McMyn is passionate about her business and plans to further expand the Ruby Slippers offering to include an online boutique with carefully selected products that are designed to make life easier at home.
The Ruby Slippers team have just completed their first kitchen using Access Matters furniture and it is stunning. We are delighted that the Access Matters range of furniture can now be enjoyed by a wider audience and we look forward to many more successful collaborations with Lisa and her team.
Visit the Ruby Slippers web site to read about this beautiful kitchen project, and to see what the client had to say about her new kitchen.
For more details of the Ruby Slippers service, contact 0131 660 9574 or send them an email using this link.
Showroom Refurbishment
Tuesday, January 19th, 2010
January 2010 sees the opening of our refurbished showroom in Flackwell Heath. It is always a challenge to design four kitchens to sit side by side in the same space, but the finished result is stunning, and a great illustration of the wide variety of kitchens now on offer.
The front of the showroom features a Ballerina kitchen with white glass doors, Miele appliances and a striking orange glass splashback. A beautiful Edwin Loxley painted shaker kitchen coordinated with a walnut pantry shares the limelight. Towards the centre of the showroom we are showing Rational furniture in book-matched Smoked Oak veneer with a coordinated Silestone worksurface and Gaggenau appliances. Finally,to the rear of the showroom, we have installed a shaker oak kitchen with Neff appliances and substantial Corian worksurfaces.
To complete the update, an LCD screen featuring images of recent projects is now the focal point of our meeting area. This is linked to a further screen at the front of the showroom, and is also networked to our office giving us internet access for quick product searches when discussing design ideas with clients.
The overall effect is breathtaking, and we are receiving great feedback from recent visitors who have caught us adding the finishing touches. Do make an appointment to pop in, and let us know what you think.
Induction Hobs
Friday, January 15th, 2010Ceramic induction hobs are among the most revolutionary appliances to hit the kitchen market in the last decade. Now firmly established as the successor to the gas hob, induction offers an unrivalled combination of responsiveness, ease of use, safety and fuel economy. Induction hobs can heat pans up to 40% faster than gas and their understated good looks make induction the obvious choice for the feature cooking island. The glossy black ceramic glass is almost invisible when incorporated into a granite or dark quartz stone worksurface. Little wonder then that the induction hob has stolen the hearts of consumers and kitchen designers alike.
So what about the technology behind the phenomenon? Induction hobs have a strong electro magnet under the tough ceramic glass cooking surface. When a saucepan with a ferrous metal base is placed on the hob, the metal in the base of the pan completes an electric circuit which causes the molecules in the base of the pan to vibrate and generate heat. This causes heat to transfer to the contents of the pan. Simple.
Because the hob doesn’t generate heat by way of a conventional heating element, it uses 25% less energy than a conventional gas hob, and offers even greater fuel economy over electric plate hobs. Induction hobs cool down quickly, and are blissfully easy to clean. They come with a range of additional features such as child locks, safety cut-out if a zone is turned on and then left unattended, minute timers, and a special feature that knows the difference between a saucepan and an unattended spoon!
Apart from their remarkable safety credentials, induction hobs offer a huge range of formats. They come either framed in steel or frame-less. They can be controlled by push-button, by touch-control, or via a touch-slider. They can have from two to six rings, with special zones for fish kettles and woks, or on some models the entire hob area is ‘active’ at any time, which is useful for over-sized pans or even for several pans at the same time!
Test to see whether your pans are suitable for induction cooking with the aid of a magnet. If the magnet sticks to the base of the pan, your pans will work with induction.
Special Safety Note on Induction Hobs:
Induction hobs generate short-range magnetic fields, and it is possible for these magnetic fields to affect the function of older pacemakers or other active implants. The likelihood of implanted devices being affected is low if the hob is being used correctly. Anecdotal evidence indicates that interference occurs only at very close range, causing the implant to pace at the programmed lower rate while it is in close proximity to the hob. Once distance is increased the implant reverts to normal operation.
All the induction hobs supplied by Design Matters comply with current standards on electromagnetic interference and are in keeping with prevailing legal requirements (89/336/CEE directives). They are therefore designed not to create interference with any other electrical items, assuming that the pacemaker or other active implants are also designed to comply with relevant legislation.
We would strongly advise that you make any users of your kitchen aware of this safety note and ask them to check with their doctor, or the manufacturer of their device in order to identify any incompatibilities. If you, a visitor or a member of your family has any concerns, then take the following precautionary measures:
• Keep the implanted device more than 24 inches away from the hob
• Avoid using metal utensils for cooking
• Avoid touching pans for extended periods while in use on the hob
This information is the result of our own informal research, errors and omissions excepted.
Special Safety Note on Induction Hobs:
Induction hobs generate short-range magnetic fields, and it is possible for these magnetic fields to affect the function of older pacemakers or other active heart implants. The likelihood of implanted devices being affected is low if the hob is being used correctly. Anecdotal evidence indicates that interference occurs only at very close range, causing the implant to pace at the programmed lower rate while it is in close proximity to the hob. Once distance is increased the implant will revert to normal operation.
All our induction hobs comply with current standards on electromagnetic interference and are in keeping with prevailing legal requirements (89/336/CEE directives). They are therefore designed not to create interference with any other electrical items, assuming that the pacemaker or other active implants are also designed to comply with relevant legislation.
We can therefore guarantee that the products we supply will conform to the current standards but we would strongly advise that you make any users of your new kitchen aware of this safety note and ask them to check with their doctor, or the manufacturer of their device in order to identify any incompatibilities.
If you, a visitor or a member of your family has any concerns, then take the following precautionary measures:
· Keep the implanted device more than 24 inches away from the hob
· Avoid using metal utensils for cooking
· Avoid touching pans for extended periods while in use on the hob
This information is the result of our own informal research, errors and omissions excepted.