The designers: Gavin Alexander and Darren Taylor at Searle & Taylor

The photographer: Paul Craig

The story: This open-plan handleless kitchen was designed for an architect, who drew the original plans for the layout as part of a contemporary new-build home project for him and his family.

Designer Q&A:

Q) Tell us about the property

The new house has a very modern design with extensive use of glass throughout. The kitchen itself faces out to the garden with full-height panel doors with black surrounds that slide open entirely to bring the outside in during the summer months. To reflect the natural light, the Intuo kitchen furniture features polished glass door and drawer fronts in Lava and Fango colourways to complement the marble floor tiles that are also light-reflective.

Q) How did you set about designing the kitchen?

We designed the kitchen to specification, with the main feature being a large T-shaped island in the 5.8m x 9m space. The concept behind the island’s shape was to have a full preparation and surface cooking space with the sink run behind it, while the length of the island would be used for dining and socialising, with bar stool seating in recesses on either side. Further soft-close drawers are on either side at the end. The raised Eternal Marfil worktop by Silestone is 80mm thick with square edging.

Q) How did you design the preparation and cooking area?

The preparation area is 3.2m wide and features a contrasting 20mm thick Eternal Marfil worktop with Shark’s nose edging to provide easy access to the stainless-steel recessed handle rails to the deep drawers at the front and sides of the island. At the centre is a Novy Panorama PRO 90 hob, with an integrated ventilation tower that rises when extraction is required and then retracts back into the hob’s surface when cooking has ended. For this reason, no overhead extraction was required for this kitchen. Directly beneath the hob are pull-out storage units and there are further deep drawers on either side for pans and plates.

Q) What about storage?

To the left of the island are tall handleless glass-fronted cabinets within a 600mm recess, featuring a broom cupboard at one end and a Neff integrated fridge freezer at the other. A bank of Neff side-by-side cooking appliances make the central focus and include two single pyrolytic ovens, a combination microwave and an integrated coffee machine together with accessory drawers. Further storage cupboards are above and below each appliance.

Q) And the sink area?

The sink run is situated beneath a long rectangular picture window with a black metal surround. Directly above it is a run of glazed cabinets, all by Intuo, with black glass surrounds and one double-height to the left of the window. The cabinets all store glassware and crockery and are backlit to make a feature of them at night.

Functional pull-out storage cupboards sit beneath the worktop, including pull-out bins, together with a 60cm integrated dishwasher on either side of the sink unit. An undermounted single bowl and separate half bowl sink by Axixuno are all cladded in stone to match the pale walls and the tap is by Quooker.

Q) We love the feature wall – what colour is it?

The feature wall is painted in Caramel Crunch by Dulux. The bar stools by Danetti were chosen by our client to complement this striking colour and crockery was chosen to match. The pendant lights are taper by Franklite.

The details:

Kitchen by Intuo at Searle & Taylor

Architect, A&B Design

Worksurfaces in Silestone by Cosentino

Appliances by Neff and Novy

Sinks by Axixuno

Tap by Quooker

Paint by Dulux

Bar stools by Danetti

Pendant lights by Franklite

Hayley loves: the way the window is framed by the Intuo cabinets and the Caramel Crunch paint colour is picked up throughout the room with accessories and bar stools in a similar shade.