Step through the door and the island is straight ahead of you, a marble waterfall top on a fluted timber base with bar stools tucked along the near face. Beyond it the room opens into a U, grey shaker fronts on all three runs, gold handles on every door. A row of teardrop pendants hangs above the island at roughly eye level as you come in, which sets the height at which the whole room reads before you have taken a second step.
One door and one window fixed this layout before anything else could be decided. The U puts sink, hob and refrigerator on three separate runs with short walks between them, and it leaves the single window clear at the far end instead of building a tall unit across it. Everything below is described in the order you meet it walking in from that doorway. This kitchen and the dining zone on the other side of the counter make up the working half of the 2,000 sq ft Bashundhara R/A Block-L apartment project.
Straight Ahead: The Island and the Pendants
The island top is marble effect surfacing with a mitred waterfall return down both ends, so the veining carries over the edge instead of stopping dead at a joint. Its base is fluted timber in a mid warm tone, the only wood in the room, cut from the same veneer family as the display column in the luxury master bedroom design in Bashundhara R/A Block-L. The overhang is set deep enough that a seated person’s knees clear the panel, a dimension missed more often than any other on an island, and it decides whether the stools get used or pushed aside.
Teardrop pendants hang in a row above, spaced to the stool positions rather than divided evenly along the island length. Those two spacings are almost never the same number. Following the stools is what stops one person eating in shadow while the person beside them sits under a lamp.
Turning Right: The Appliance Tower and the Refrigerators
The tall run begins immediately to the right of the door. A built in oven sits at chest height with a microwave stacked above it, both housed in one grey tower that keeps the cabinet line unbroken so it reads as wall rather than as equipment. Nobody bends to load the oven, which across twenty years of daily cooking is a real saving on the back of whoever cooks most. Trays and baking tins go into deep drawers underneath.
Beside the tower a black side by side refrigerator and a stainless unit stand faced into the cabinetry, their depths planned so the doors sit flush with the fronts either side. That only works when appliance models are settled before carcasses are cut. A refrigerator retro fitted into finished cabinetry leaves a shadow gap down one flank that no filler strip ever disguises. Handles on this run share the profile used on the wardrobe in the modern bedroom design with fluted headboard in Bashundhara R/A Block-L.
Counters, Double Sink and the Only Window
The far run carries a double sink under the window, one bowl for washing and one for draining, with counter to both sides of it. Counter depth was taken fifty millimetres past standard here, a change that costs almost nothing at fabrication and returns real working space behind the taps for bottles and a drainer. Marble effect surfacing was specified over natural stone throughout for the reason most kitchens in Dhaka should be: turmeric and hot oil will mark a porous stone inside a month, and this material takes both without staining. The same specification runs through the kitchens we build under our interior design service in Bashundhara.
The Storage Side and the Under Cabinet Line
The third run is storage, floor cabinets below and wall units above, with an LED strip running the full length behind a shadow batten so the source itself is never in view from the island. Lighting works in three separately switched layers: ceiling downlights for cleaning and cooking, the counter strip for prep, and the pendants alone for eating. The last of those is what most evenings actually use. Shaker fronts were chosen over flat slab because the rest of the apartment is classical in feel and a slab door would have argued with the panelled doors this kitchen opens next to.
The Corners Where the Runs Turn
Corners are where U shaped kitchens usually surrender a cubic foot of storage to a dead void. Both corners here take pull out carousel fittings, and the door swing was set so that opening a corner door does not foul the handle on the return run, a clash you only catch by drawing both elevations on one sheet. Drawing every wall as an elevation before anything is cut is the same habit that produced the built in desk in the modern bedroom design with study desk in Bashundhara R/A Block-L.
Back at the Doorway, Looking In
Stand at the door again with the room finished and what holds it together is the repetition of three things: one grey, one gold, one marble. The overhead view makes it plain. Three matched runs around an island, no cabinet at an odd height, no second handle profile anywhere in the room. Cooking on a gas hob with heavy spice puts far more grease into the air here than a European kitchen ever handles, so extraction sizing, hinge grade and carcass material were settled at the same stage as those finishes and sit on the same specification sheet. That sheet is what our modular kitchen design service sets out in full. Compare it between firms before you compare door samples.
Send us your kitchen dimensions and we will tell you whether a U shape fits. Call us at 01633-033033 or book a free consultation today.
