Kitchen Design – Asymmetrical Balance
I’ve been a bit stuck on symmetry this week, extolling the bilateral kind here, whining about its absence there. So today let’s have a look at that tricky and subtle member of the symmetry family, asymmetrical balance.
Karim Rashid design for Scavolini
First, a definition:
Asymmetrical balance brings into equilibrium elements that are equivalent but not matching
John F. Pile, Interior Design, Prentice Hall Inc, 2nd Edition
It’s just like those problems I remember spending oh at least an entire school year solving in Physics when I was about 13 (it was stuff like this that made sure I dropped physics just as soon as I could – I was a late developer and did not realize this might affect my ambition to become an astrophysicist). You remember the one, where the lighter object can balance the heavier one, if it’s further from the fulcrum:
Balancing unequal weights either side of a fulcrum
The problem in interiors is that it’s not always so easy to know exactly where the fulcrum is, and all sorts of factors come into play when considering equivalent visual weights – form, color, texture, relative size, etc. – it’s not a mathematical formula, and that’s what makes balance a subtle and tricky thing to achieve. I think it’s clear, in the Scavolini photo, that the tall dark hood surround with the empty space beneath the counter balances the squat, wide and bright run of wall cabinets and floor cabinets to the left, wherever the fulcrum might be.
You’ll see this kind of balance everywhere once you start looking – a wall sconce one side of a window can balance a run of wall cabinets on the other, or long open shelves this side of a wall hood might balance tall cabinets on that side. It’s more subjective than bilateral symmetry, and that’s exactly why we designers spend so much time sketching or modeling in CAD – it gets easier with experience to know what will work, but experimentation is key.
Definitely dissimilar - an exterior view vs. wall cabinets
- Visual equilibrium, hood vs. window – Platform 5
When it works, asymmetrical balance is as easy on the eye as bilateral symmetry, but less formal and rigid. When it doesn’t work, it will probably make you distinctly uncomfortable.
It’s not really fair to judge from a single photograph, but for me the picture below is an example that doesn’t work. I don’t feel that the refrigerator is visually balanced by the wall cabinets to the left of the hood surround, and I don’t feel that the little open shelf with the picture helps at all. I’d like to see the wall cabinets shorter and the hood surround taller, maybe – or the hood surround extended over to the refrigerator and the wall cabinets taller…
Balanced or not? Photo James Salomon
As I said, there is plenty of room for subjectivity. Perhaps the most important rule is that if things look as if they should be the same, but for some reason they can’t be, it’s usually best to make sure they have distinctly different visual weights. Deliberate asymmetry looks better than symmetry that is just a little off. Here (below) the “fulcrum” is obviously the window, and there’s no room for equal sized wall cabinets either side. The two glass doors on the left-hand cabinet lighten it visually, and help to balance the single, wider door on the right-hand cabinet. It works for me:
Different, deliberately (Cote Maison)
Now I know, you are an alert and observant reader, and you’re going to point out that that the base cabinets don’t balance either. While I do sometimes put a false drawer front or a center stile on a dishwasher panel, so that it isn’t such a standout size-wise, very often what goes on below the counter is hidden behind an island or a peninsula. If you can never really stand back and take in the entire view, it’s probably not worth obsessing about – even for someone as obsessed as I am!
