Kitchen layouts.
Seven options. One clear guide.

The working triangle links the three primary work centres: fridge, sink, and hob. In a well-planned kitchen, the distance between these three points is short enough to avoid unnecessary movement with heavy pans and hot trays, but not so short that two cooks crowd each other. The principle dates from the 1940s but remains a useful starting point for most single-cook UK kitchens.

The practical rules are straightforward. Each leg of the triangle should sit between approximately 1.2m and 2.7m. The total distance across all three legs should fall between roughly 4m and 8m. No major walkway or traffic route should cut through the triangle during normal cooking.

In compact rooms, the triangle often compresses into a straight run. This is a single-wall or galley layout in practice. In larger rooms, zone planning often gives a more useful result than the triangle because the kitchen serves multiple users and purposes simultaneously. Both approaches are valid. The triangle gives a useful reference point even where zones replace it as the primary planning method.

These figures give a realistic planning baseline for UK kitchen projects. Use them before committing to a layout. Check appliance manuals for specific clearance requirements. Consult a gas-safe engineer before finalising hob and extraction positions.

Many UK kitchens use approximately 720mm high base carcasses with a 150mm plinth. German kitchen ranges offer carcass heights from 260mm to 900mm and plinths from 20mm to 200mm. The standard UK combination in the German kitchen market is a 780mm carcass with a 100mm plinth.

This matters for layout planning because the final working surface height is the sum of three numbers: carcass height, plus plinth height, plus worktop thickness. A 780mm carcass with a 100mm plinth and a 38mm laminate worktop produces a 918mm working surface. Confirm this calculation on the section drawing before the order is placed.

Taller carcasses deliver more usable internal drawer depth without extending the kitchen footprint. In compact layouts where the floor area is fixed, choosing a taller carcass is one of the most effective storage gains available without redesigning the plan. A 900mm carcass on the same plan as a 780mm carcass gives the same floor footprint with meaningfully more internal storage volume per unit.

For the full carcass specification, board thicknesses, plinth options, and panel sizes, see the Why German Kitchens guide.

A single wall kitchen keeps all units, appliances, and services on one run. This suits narrow rooms, studios, and open-plan spaces where the kitchen sits along one wall of a larger room. It is the simplest layout to plan and the lowest in furniture cost for a given width.

The main design challenge is storage. Without a second run of units, storage relies on tall units and wall units on the one available wall. German carcass systems help significantly here because taller carcasses deliver more drawer depth from a short run, and full-height larder units make the most of vertical space that a standard UK carcass wastes.

A compact peninsula opposite the single wall run extends the layout with minimal floor area. This adds prep space, a seating option, and a visual anchor for the kitchen within the larger room without requiring the full clearances of a galley or U-shape.

A galley uses two runs of units facing each other. In UK housing this layout appears in older terraces, narrow extensions, and purpose-built apartments where the kitchen sits in a dedicated narrow room. It is efficient for one main cook and supports a compact working triangle between the two runs.

The critical dimension is the clear walkway between the two facing runs once units, worktops, and handles are in place. A 900mm walkway works but feels tight with two people in the kitchen. 1000–1200mm is significantly more comfortable and worth achieving through careful appliance selection and unit depth choices where the room is borderline.

Through traffic is the main practical problem in a galley layout. If the room is a corridor route to another part of the house, cooking is regularly interrupted and the risk of knocks and collisions is higher. A galley that is closed at one end and has a single entry performs substantially better than one with through traffic.

The L-shape uses two adjoining walls and leaves two sides of the room open. It is the most common kitchen layout in UK semi-detached and detached homes and works well in extensions and open-plan knock-throughs where the kitchen connects to a dining or living area.

Units run along one main wall and turn the corner to a second wall. The hob typically sits on the longer run with the sink on the shorter return, or the other way around depending on the window and service positions. The open corner of the room accommodates a table, an island, or a clear circulation route to the garden or dining area.

The internal corner where the two runs meet needs careful planning. Poor corner storage wastes a significant volume of the most valuable cabinet space in the kitchen. Carousel systems, magic corners, and Le Mans pull-out solutions all address this problem. German manufacturers offer dedicated corner solutions within their system grids that are worth specifying at the design stage rather than treating the corner as a planning afterthought.

A U-shape uses three walls of the room. It delivers the largest worktop area and the highest storage volume of any layout within a fixed floor plan. The working triangle sits naturally within the three runs, with short routes between all three work centres. It suits medium to larger kitchen rooms and works particularly well in a dedicated kitchen room rather than an open-plan space.

The two internal corners need the same careful planning as the L-shape, but there are twice as many of them. Both corners need a specified access solution at design stage. Two poorly planned corners waste a significant proportion of the available cabinet volume and make the layout frustrating in daily use regardless of how well the rest of the plan is executed.

In narrow U-shapes where the clear floor area between the three runs is tight, tall units on every wall risk making the room feel enclosed. The most common solution is to use lower units or open shelves on one wall, typically the wall opposite the main cooking run, and reserve tall storage for the two side walls where it does not interrupt the sightline across the room.

An island layout adds a freestanding unit in the centre of the kitchen. It suits open-plan extensions and larger rooms where the kitchen connects to dining and living areas. The island is the focal point of the room and determines most of the other planning decisions around it.

The island role varies by project. It commonly holds preparation worktop, seating with a breakfast bar or lower counter, storage in the form of drawers and cabinets on the dining side, and occasionally a hob with downdraft extraction or an integrated extractor ceiling above it. A sink in the island is possible but requires plumbing in the floor, which adds cost and constraints on island positioning.

Clearance is the dimension that most limits island sizing in UK homes. 1000–1200mm of clear walkway on the working sides of the island is the comfortable range for one person. 900mm is the absolute minimum. A kitchen room that looks generous enough for an island on a plan often turns out to have compromised clearances when unit depths, worktop overhangs, and door swings are all drawn in at full size. Confirm clearances on the full-size elevation drawing before the order is placed.

Peninsula layout. A peninsula runs out from a wall or tall bank and stays attached at the back. It suits L-shaped and U-shaped kitchens that need more prep space or seating without the clearance requirements of a full island. The peninsula connects to the main run on one end, which means only two sides and the end need clearance rather than all four sides.

The peninsula creates a natural division between the kitchen and dining area, which works well in open-plan UK homes where the kitchen connects to a living space. A breakfast bar on the dining side of the peninsula is a standard use in family homes. The limitation is that the peninsula creates a single main entry point into the cooking area. If the cooking run is behind the peninsula and the entry is at one end, traffic in and out of the kitchen all passes through the same point.

G-shaped layout. A G-shape starts with a U-shape and adds a short extra return that creates a partial fourth side. It suits larger rooms where high storage and worktop levels are the priority and the cook prefers a defined, contained working area. The G-shape is the most storage-intensive kitchen layout available for a given room size. The risk is visual heaviness if every wall uses tall units, and tight openings if the extra return is not positioned carefully.