TL;DR
Designers featured by Livingetc describe a growing interest in angular kitchen islands, which can echo a home’s architecture and help keep walkways open. They say the shapes also complicate planning for seating, storage and appliances, so each island needs to be designed around the room and household’s needs.
Designers are using angular kitchen islands to make kitchens feel more sculptural and, in some projects, to improve movement through the room, according to a Livingetc report. The approach adapts the island’s shape to a home’s architecture or layout, but designers say it can make seating, storage and appliance clearances harder to resolve.
The report describes designs ranging from subtle cuts into rectangular islands to more pronounced forms, including a hexagonal terrazzo island by Madrid studio Plutarco and a marble island by Studio Duggan with a bevelled underside and pedestal-like base. The examples show how designers are treating islands as prominent interior features as well as work surfaces.
Atelier Alwill director Romaine Alwill said an island can be treated as a sculptural element that sets a design tone for a home. In one project, she drew on chamfered blades around the house’s front windows to shape the island. She said the form gave the kitchen a link to the architecture and offered an alternative to a standard rectangular block.
Designers also described practical benefits. In a Belgian home, owner Eline De Bruyne said the combination of angled sides and a curved edge helped preserve an open walkway while balancing the island’s large scale. Alwill said her own island required careful adjustments to legroom, dishwasher placement and storage; leaving out a sink helped make the design work.
How Shape Can Guide Kitchen Movement
An island sits at the intersection of cooking, storage and circulation. Changing its outline can affect where people walk and gather, as well as how the kitchen relates to adjoining rooms. De Bruyne said her island’s geometry helped keep a walkway open, while Alwill described using angles to connect the interior to features of the house.
The designers’ examples suggest the trend is not only about appearance: a custom shape can respond to an irregular room or create a focal point within a kitchen. The trade-off is that a non-standard footprint can require more design work to fit daily tasks and equipment. The source does not provide comparative data on cost or usability, so the benefits described are project-specific.
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From Irregular Rooms to Sculptural Forms
Livingetc traces its interest in angled islands to a project by Polish studio Akurat. Founder and creative director Maciej Ryniewicz said the team faced a highly irregular room and angled the island in relation to the walls so it would feel suited to the space from different approaches.
Other examples in the report reflect different starting points. Plutarco used a hexagonal form alongside a mix of terrazzo, cherry wood, dark blue-stained pine and tile. Atelier Alwill took cues from the house’s chamfered window blades, while De Bruyne and designer Oskar De Roover combined curves with angular sides. These projects show a range of approaches; the report does not establish how widespread the trend is across the kitchen industry.
“We were faced with a challenging space that was highly irregular in shape.”
— Maciej Ryniewicz, founder and creative director of Akurat
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Costs and Wider Adoption Remain Unknown
The source gives design examples and practitioners’ views, but it does not quantify how common angular islands have become, how much they cost compared with standard islands, or whether they improve workflow across kitchens generally. The reported circulation benefits come from individual projects and are not supported by comparative measurements.
It is also unclear how each featured island performs over time or how its usable work surface compares with a conventional design. Those details depend on the room, the island’s dimensions and the household’s priorities.
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Planning Around Daily Kitchen Use
For homeowners considering an angled island, the designers’ accounts point to the next step: work through the room plan with a kitchen designer or architect. That means mapping walkways, legroom, work surfaces, storage and appliance openings against the proposed shape before settling on materials and finishes.
Livingetc’s report does not identify a formal industry milestone or forecast for the trend. Its examples indicate that future designs will depend on how well the geometry fits each home’s architecture and practical requirements.
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Key Questions
What is an angular kitchen island?
It is an island with angled sides, clipped corners or a more complex outline than a standard rectangle. The examples in the Livingetc report include hexagonal and bevelled forms.
Can an angled island improve movement through a kitchen?
It can in some layouts. Homeowner Eline De Bruyne said the angled sides of her island helped keep a walkway open, but the result depends on the room and island dimensions.
What practical issues need planning?
Designers cited legroom, seating, storage, work surfaces and dishwasher placement. Alwill said her project required fine-tuning and that not putting a sink on the island helped.
Are angular islands becoming standard?
The report describes a growing presence in designers’ projects, but it provides no industry-wide data showing how common the style is.
Source: rss
