Open kitchen CAD blocks for open-plan living layouts

What 'open' changes about the design

In a closed kitchen the walls hide everything and define circulation. Open the kitchen and three things change. First, the worktop and the back of the hob are visible from the living area, so the layout has a public face — clutter zones want to be turned away from the seating. Second, circulation is shared: the route to the sofa or the garden often passes through the kitchen zone. Third, sound, smell and sightlines all carry, so the hood and the layout matter more.

The upside is sociability — the cook faces the room rather than a wall, often from behind an island. The design job is to keep the working triangle tight and private while opening the rest of the zone to the living space. Scaled blocks let you place the island so the cook works facing in, with the messy sink or hob screened by the island mass.

The island and peninsula as the centre

An island is a freestanding run in the middle of the floor; a peninsula is the same idea attached to a wall or a cabinet run at one end. Either can carry the hob, the sink or just a prep surface and a casual eating bar. As the centre of an open kitchen it does three jobs: extra worktop, a social barrier between cook and guests, and a perch for stools.

Size it generously but clear it on all working sides. An island typically runs 900–1200 mm deep when it carries an overhang for stools, and wants about 1000 mm of clear floor on every side so doors, drawers and dishwashers can open while people pass. Where the island holds the hob, the hood hangs above it as a feature, drawn in elevation. Place the island block first in an open plan — everything else, including the dining table beyond, positions relative to it.

Blocks for the open zone

The appliance kit is the same as any kitchen — cooker or built-in hob and oven, fridge, sink, hood — but here the views matter more because the kitchen is seen, not hidden. Use blocks that carry both plan and elevation so you can draw how the run looks from the living side. The hood becomes a feature object hanging over the island, so its elevation block earns its place.

Then comes the social furniture the open plan adds. Bar stools tuck under the island overhang — round-back or wooden stools drawn in elevation and plan. Pendant lights or a chandelier hang over the island and over the dining table beyond, drawn on a lighting layer as the visual anchors of the zone. Beyond the island, a dining table block sets the eating zone, completing the kitchen-diner.

- Working run: cooker, fridge, sink, hood in plan and elevation - Island/peninsula: deep run with stool overhang - Seating: bar stools at the island, dining chairs beyond - Lighting: pendants or a chandelier over island and table

Circulation across the whole zone

Because the kitchen shares the floor, you draw circulation for the room, not just the run. Keep about 1000 mm clear on every working side of the island, and widen any side that is also a through-route to the garden or the sofa to nearer 1200 mm. Behind a row of bar stools that are in use, allow roughly 900–1000 mm so someone can pass behind a seated diner without squeezing.

Between the kitchen run and the island, the same galley logic applies: at least 1000 mm so two people can work, more if it doubles as the main path through the home. The dining zone beyond needs its own pull-out and walk-around space behind the chairs. Drop all the scaled blocks — run, island, stools, table — and the conflicts between cooking, seating and passing through show up as overlaps you can resolve on the plan.

Assembling the open-plan drawing

Set the island first, centred in its share of the floor with its long axis usually parallel to the main run. Lay the working run along the wall behind it and place the appliances to form a triangle between the wall run and the island. Tuck the stool blocks under the island overhang and set the dining table block beyond, leaving its walk-around space.

Layer generously: appliances, base units, wall units, island, worktop, lighting and the dining furniture each on their own layer. That lets you plot a working kitchen plan, a furniture plan that includes the diner, and an elevation looking at the island from the living side. Hang the pendant or chandelier blocks on the lighting layer over the island and the table to anchor the zone, and hatch the through-routes so they survive the rest of the furniture layout.

Open kitchen mistakes to avoid

The first mistake is an island crammed into a floor too small for it, leaving under a metre on one side so a dishwasher door blocks the only walkway. If the clearances do not hold on all four sides, the island is too big — shrink it before the kitchen becomes a maze. The second is facing the messy zone — the sink full of dishes or the hob — straight at the seating, so guests look at the washing-up.

The third is forgetting the stools in the circulation count: a row of seated diners at the island narrows the passage behind them, and if there is no 900 mm allowance the route is blocked whenever someone sits down. The fourth is lighting the island as an afterthought; in an open plan the pendants are the visual centrepiece, so place them deliberately over the island and the table on a dedicated layer.