Why the kitchen work triangle still holds up

The 'kitchen work triangle' — sink, stove, and refrigerator forming three points you move between constantly — is nearly a century old, first documented by researchers studying how much walking a kitchen actually demanded of the person cooking in it.

Open-concept layouts didn't retire the idea; they just stretched it across a bigger floor plate. The principle that still holds: no leg of that triangle should be interrupted by a walkway, and the total distance shouldn't exceed roughly 8 metres — much beyond that and a kitchen starts to feel like a commute.

In small-format HDB kitchens this is rarely the constraint. In larger landed or condo kitchens with an island, it's the first thing we check before finalising a layout — an island in the wrong spot can cut straight through the triangle.