Johnny Grey
Encyclopedia
Johnny Grey is an architect
Architect
An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...

, designer
Designer
A designer is a person who designs. More formally, a designer is an agent that "specifies the structural properties of a design object". In practice, anyone who creates tangible or intangible objects, such as consumer products, processes, laws, games and graphics, is referred to as a...

 and author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

.

Background

Grey trained as an architect at the London Architectural Association School of Architecture
Architectural Association School of Architecture
The Architectural Association School of Architecture, more usually known as the AA, is an architectural school in London, United Kingdom...

. After graduating in 1977, he set up a design studio and furniture workshop. He wrote a manifesto on design and began to explore a new way of designing kitchens after a chance encounter with a client who wanted a Gothic "punk
Punk subculture
The punk subculture includes a diverse array of ideologies, and forms of expression, including fashion, visual art, dance, literature, and film, which grew out of punk rock.-History:...

" kitchen
Kitchen
A kitchen is a room or part of a room used for cooking and food preparation.In the West, a modern residential kitchen is typically equipped with a stove, a sink with hot and cold running water, a refrigerator and kitchen cabinets arranged according to a modular design. Many households have a...

.

His ideas have influenced the world of design, demonstrating both his practical vision and his skills as observer and thinker. His aunt was Elizabeth David
Elizabeth David
Elizabeth David CBE was a British cookery writer who, in the mid-20th century, strongly influenced the revitalisation of the art of home cookery with articles and books about European cuisines and traditional British dishes.Born to an upper-class family, David rebelled against social norms of the...

, the doyen of British food writers who had a big influence of his interest in kitchens.

Kitchen Design

In August 1980 the UK Sunday Times wrote a story entitled "why this awful fixation with fitted Kitchens" which featured Grey. In 1987 Grey's concept of the "Unfitted Kitchen" was licensed to Smallbone of Devizes http://www.smallbone.co.uk , an English kitchen company. Grey was selected as one of the UK’s most influential designers of the 20th century by UK House and Garden
House & Garden (magazine)
House & Garden was an American shelter magazine published by Condé Nast Publications that focused on interior design, entertaining, and gardening....

 magazine in 2000 having been featured editorially twenty years in a row. He has also been voted the kitchen designer’s kitchen designer by Homes and Gardens magazine as well as having over two hundred articles written about him in the press. He has been called the"World’s best kitchen designer" by the New York Times and Metropolitan Home magazine, as well as being chosen as one off America’s top one hundred designers.

Research Projects

Grey has undertaken Neuroscience
Neuroscience
Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system. Traditionally, neuroscience has been seen as a branch of biology. However, it is currently an interdisciplinary science that collaborates with other fields such as chemistry, computer science, engineering, linguistics, mathematics,...

 research projects at Salford University with Professor John Zeisel include research into well being and architecture.

Charitable and NGO work

Grey contributed to Sarah Brown’s book for Piggy Bank Kids, Moving on up, raising awareness about mentoring for single parent families. Grey has also contributed to Project Open Hand
Project Open Hand
Project Open Hand is a volunteer agency maintained and operated non-profit organization offering hot meals, grocery service, and nutrition education to those who qualify in both San Francisco and Alameda Counties...

 in San Francisco, a charity for meals on wheels for aids sufferers, and to the Edible Schoolyard Project for Alice Waters
Alice Waters
Alice Louise Waters is an American chef, restaurateur, activist, and author. She is the owner of Chez Panisse, a Berkeley, California restaurant famous for its organic, locally-grown ingredients and for pioneering California cuisine.Waters opened the restaurant in 1971. It has consistently ranked...

 in Berkeley, California
Berkeley, California
Berkeley is a city on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay in Northern California, United States. Its neighbors to the south are the cities of Oakland and Emeryville. To the north is the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington...

.

Grey is a founder member of the South Coast Design Forum along with Wayne Hemingway
Wayne Hemingway
Wayne Andrew Hemingway, MBE is an English fashion designer and co-founder of Red or Dead. He is also chairman of the South Coast Design Forum, and chair of Building For Life .Hemingway is the son of Canadian Mohawk chief and former wrestler Billy Two Rivers...

.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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