US millennials' dream kitchen goes micro

Seattle

FOR many, the American dream kitchen has long been a grand showplace, filled with granite islands that stretch like aircraft carriers through a sea of shining appliances.

But in the urban technology centres that have become the nation's new factory towns, the kitchen gold-standard glorified in design magazines and lovingly ogled in Nancy Meyers movies is being redefined. In cities like this one, where Amazon plans to fill 10 million square feet of office space, the aspirational kitchens of young cooks have small footprints and shrunken appliances.