From the designer:

This kitchen is for a young family in a brand new house in the burgeoning Auckland suburb of Long Bay.

The home is architecturally designed, and the couple wanted an equally considered kitchen.

They also wanted it to be bold and dark – they didn’t want a ‘cookie-cutter’ design.

The couple also had a tight budget.

The soaring, 5 m-high cathedral ceiling is the obvious feature of the open-plan living/dining/kitchen space – it was also the inspiration for my design.

I wanted to use and exaggerate this architectural feature, to make the kitchen feel like part of the home’s design rather than a series of boxes just plonked into the space.

I decided to use the full height of the space for the cabinetry and built out a new bulkhead along the entire back wall of the room to accommodate this.

Above the ‘usable’ space, I designed a series of feature panels made from woven metal mesh and backlit by LED lighting – these panels are purely decorative.

The upper void within the bulkhead is used to house the air conditioning unit and ducting, and also the ducting for the extractor.

The homeowners also requested a drinks station, which I placed behind pocket doors in the second bank of cabinetry along the side wall.

This cabinetry also contains an integrated fridge and pantry.

Behind the main kitchen is a sizeable scullery, accessed by a hidden sliding door.

Because the budget was tight, the specification of the scullery was pared back, but it is still highly functional, with everything the family needs for prep, clean-up and storage.

The material palette, as requested, is dark.

The cabinetry is cost-effective Black Wilderness from Bestwood.

All working surfaces are tough and hardwearing.

I used Neolith from CDK Stone as a feature for the island, and black Dekton for the cooktop benchtop, splashback and scullery, in keeping with the dark theme.