The interrelationships between kitchen design and food practices for apartment dwellers in Melbourne, Australia: an exploratory study

Abstract

ABSTRACT Apartment-living is on the increase, despite this, little is known about how it influences food practices. We explored the interrelations between apartment kitchen design and food practices using Photo elicited interviews and an inductive thematic analysis, with a diverse sample of twelve apartment-dwellers across four suburbs of Melbourne, Australia. Participants took 160 photographs representing their food practices to guide interviews. Three themes emerged from the interview analysis: ‘Choices’ which included participants’ cooking preferences, as well as their choice of apartment in which to prepare these meals; ‘Challenges’ which referred to the kitchen design barriers to home cooking including issues relating to storage, food preparation, washing up, ventilation, lighting and recycling and; ‘Changes’ which described the physical adaptations to kitchens and behavioural adaptations to food practices as a result of poor kitchen design. Based on these findings, using a socioecological framework, we describe the proximal and distal interrelationships between kitchen design and food practices; and discuss how these could be further researched to inform future apartment design policy.