Chic Centrefold

New Zealand designer Annika Rowson has just unveiled this elegant beauty – a third kitchen in her Rowson Kitchens showroom. Having a showroom that changes every couple of years enables Annika not only to showcase leading edge materials, concepts and functional features in kitchen design, but also to personally challenge herself to apply materials in new and unexpected ways. Which is exactly what she’s done here with the centrepiece of this kitchen – the Corian® kitchen island in Cirrus White. Annika chose to use the reverse side of the Corian® sheet to enhance its patterning, and then had it hand-fluted (which enhances the reverse-side patterning even more). The island also features a Corian® Sparkling 023 sink which is seamless into the top. Annika’s tightrope-wire-balancing-act of depth and weight with light and softness within the space at one end of the scale you have the heft of the marble concrete floor, rich smoked oak cabinetry, bronze hardware, bronze glass… on the other you have the sheer floaty curtains, the almost-floating sculptural lighting, the creamy-clad upper walls and extra-high stud… The Corian® kitchen island in itself is a beautiful balancing act – weighty but white; curvy rounded edges juxtaposed with the linear fluting; the silky-smooth top alongside all the tactility and texture of the grooves and ridges.