The Architecture of Washing Up

I am an architect. You wont catch me being accountable to shoddy design, especially in my own kitchen. I can stand back and silently admire my creations from a distance, knowing that I tackled an everyday obligation with style. It’s a harmony that obviously goes unnoticed to others, but the true designer doesn’t seek the adoration. I build and usually I disassemble - construction and demolition. My designs are inventive, harmonious sometimes risky, but above all - they are structurally safe. This is the architecture of washing up.

THIS MORNING'S CREATION - an flow of glass, steel, ceramic and organic materials. Yes it was shot with a 24mm TSE mk2 - all good architectural photographers use them.

I don’t know whether it is the same in your household but it is I who manages the kitchen. I get a certain therapy out of it, more so than other duties likes hanging out the bastard washing, which is lets face it is immensely irritating. After moving to a bigger house, I bought a good hoover and subsequently I now love to vacuum. I will happily spend a half hour restoring the ‘weft of the carpet’ on a Sunday morning, but washing up is far beyond supplying a service - it’s in my genes. 

The building materials of good washing-up-architecture cannot be chosen. At the helm, with hot water filling the sink, you cast your eye over pots and pans, plates and utensils and it is here that ideas start to flood in the bowl. Your constructions will always be of random design, unless all you eat are ready meals with a dirty fork and it is this unpredictability that separates those that labour, like Rachel, from those that create. 



Some designs will be tower blocks, heavyweight, perhaps a little too industrial as sleeves up, you cope with grit and grime of Sunday roast. Others will be delicate, a lunchtime salad with glasses of Rose, an array of interesting shapes and materials, but whatever you are presented with it is the architect’s responsibility to leave the sink with a safe and harmonious structure. 

The reason? Because you’ll be drying up and putting away that’s why - double the work - that or you’ll be subcontracting in a reluctant labour force, in exchange for even more work - making a consoling hot beverage at the end. The good architect’s creations must integrate or suffer the consequences.

BACK TO UNIVERSITY DAYS - you're going to need subcontractors to complete this

Finally, choose your tools well. Quality sponges, cutlery pot and nice aromatic washing up liquid. Choose your washing rack carefully. My spindly £7 Ikea special may compliment, but its fatally flawed. The radius is too wide for saucers - but guess what - that’s because I never chose it. Choose good music, choose a half hour comedy and BUILD YOURSELF A MASTERPIECE.

Talking of towerblocks - Have a look at this crazy washing up rack - that's right it's the Manhattan Skyline! That has to be worth every penny. CLICK HERE

CLEANING UP MANHATTAN STYLE - what a brilliant idea. 

 

Get a dishwasher? You must be Kidding.