Retro 1960’s Bespoke Sustainable Kitchen, Oxford

Colour is rarely the starting point for a kitchen brief but for this Oxford home, it was everything. Our client had spent years travelling to Mexico and Morocco, drawn to their bold, sun-saturated palettes, and wanted a kitchen that carried that spirit into daily life.

The 1960s felt like the right frame, the decade when kitchens first became the true centre of the home, open and social rather than hidden and functional. We opened up the rear of the house entirely, creating a new lounge-kitchen-diner flooded with light from a run of rooflights above and timber bi-fold doors opening onto the garden.

Flat-faced wood cabinets were handcrafted in natural low-carbon materials and finished in bold red and orange low-VOC paint, joyful without being loud, retro without being costume. Closed cupboards sit alongside natural wood open shelving, and the worktop is solid birch, lightly oiled. Even the handles were made from offcuts left over from the build, nothing wasted, everything considered.

Glueless construction throughout means every element can be disassembled and repurposed in the future. A kitchen built to last, and built to be loved.

How this project creates lasting impact

For the people who live here

A bold, ergonomic kitchen designed around how this family actually lives, reducing toxic chemicals and pollutants through low-VOC paints and natural sustainable materials, and creating a space that genuinely supports daily wellbeing.

For the environment

High energy-rated appliances throughout. Waste designed out from the start including handles crafted from offcuts so nothing went to landfill. Locally designed and handcrafted in our Oxfordshire workshop, reducing transport miles. Glueless circular construction throughout, designed for disassembly and future repurposing.

Photographer- Dan Paton