Great British kitchens have undergone plenty of change in the last few decades. Initially a utilitarian room, they have been reinvigorated and tweaked to become an entertaining space and an important hub for the family. But for years, the same old issues have blighted the kitchen’s attempt to reconfigure its place in the home: cooking creates smells – and smells can be off-putting to live in.
It’s a problem that has been exacerbated by modern interior trends: “There has been a real move over the last 30 years in this country towards open-plan style,” explains David Nicholls, deputy editor of House & Garden magazine. “That dividing wall between the kitchen and dining room has disappeared – and often the wall to the living room, too.”
With that change has come a range of innovative ways to utilise the space – but they often struggle with grease, smoke and smells escaping the cooking zone and plaguing those using communal family areas. Siemens’ inductionAir Plus system, however, tackles that problem at its core, enabling the kitchen to become a real family hub, unencumbered by the limitations of open-plan designs.
Combining its cutting-edge hob technology with revolutionary integrated ventilation, the Siemens inductionAir Plus system opens up a whole new world of possibilities for your kitchen. Whether you’ve got a huge, showcase kitchen designed for entertaining, or a cosy, small space in which to cook, the inductionAir Plus hob can maximise storage space and create a sense of airiness in a room that often feels closed off from the rest of the home.
“What’s nice about having the ventilation and extractor at counter level is you’re not having the smell go up into the room at all – and inevitably escaping into the other spaces,” says Nicholls. There’s no need to worry about planning your weekly meal lineup to coincide with when you may have guests over. inductionAir Plus’ ventilation system simply siphons away unseemly smells as they emanate from pots and pans, leaving a pleasant atmosphere for all.
Creative cooking can also be messy – and that’s why the ventilation inlet has an easy-to-clean black glass surround, while any liquid spilled into the vent is captured in a removable tray, to keep your appliance safe from damage. And, while you whip up a masterpiece, the innovative, automatic climateControl Sensor constantly monitors vapours and odours, adjusting the extraction rate of the system to match what’s needed. The extractor fan, driven by a quiet, efficient brushless iQdrive motor, can pull out any odours with barely a sound.
Best of all, it’s also barely visible. The ventilation slots in the inductionAir Plus system integrate smoothly into your hob surface, meaning it doesn’t take up any vital floorspace in your kitchen. “If you’re going for that clean, uncluttered, minimal look, it means you don’t have to have some intrusive thing stuck to your wall or ceiling,” says Nicholls.
Such sleek flexibility is a boon to those rethinking what their kitchens can be. “It allows for a number of decorative possibilities. I think that’s incredibly interesting about it,” says Nicholls. “You could have decent art in your kitchen without worrying that it’s going to be ruined with grease and steam and hot air.”
But it’s not just in unlocking space and reinventing the kitchen as a new, relaxing room to live in that Siemens’ technology truly comes into its own. The inductionAir Plus system is a cutting-edge cooking surface, giving the ordinary home-cook culinary superpowers. powerMove Plus allows users to separate their hob into three distinct cooking areas, from keeping things warm to the high heat needed to professionally sauté. It means you can feel confident in your cooking, knowing that the hob has your back. Meanwhile, cookingSensor Plus works together with your pots and pans to know when the optimal temperature has been achieved, and then keeps your cookware at that exact level.
But the technology to help you create the best meals possible doesn’t end there – there’s also fryingSensor Plus, which uses unseen sensors contained within the hob itself to keep your pan’s temperature at a steady rate, ensuring there’s no fluctuation as you fry, so you always get the best possible results.
And for those who want even greater command over the area they’re cooking on, the intuitive control given to you by the dualLight Slider literally puts the power at your fingertips. You have total control over all cooking stations using the system – simply select various areas of the hob and join them together, carefully controlling their temperature.
The whole tech-enabled system is designed to reinvigorate your culinary prowess – and to help take your mind off the challenges of cooking, so you can get down to entertaining. It’s a key component in any kitchen remodelling plan – reinventing the way you cook, live and entertain. “Working on an interiors magazine, one of the things we always find ourselves doing on photoshoots is trying to hide any real signs of technology in the composition,” says Nicholls. With the inductionAir Plus system, there’s no need to do that – it’s already hidden. “Housing in this country is only getting smaller. So if you’ve got something which can maximise the space you’re using – and integration is always an answer to that – this is ideal.”
Learn more about Siemens inductionAir Plus please visit the Siemens website or arrange an appointment at the Siemens London showroom
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
