Most kitchen complaints have nothing to do with cabinet colour. They're about walking too far between the fridge and the stove, or a drawer that can't open because the dishwasher door is in the way. Layout decides that before a single panel is ordered — so it's worth getting right first.
Start with the working triangle, not the cabinet catalogue
The "working triangle" is the distance between your three busiest points: the stove, the sink, and the fridge. In a well-planned kitchen, the sum of those three distances usually falls somewhere between 4 and 7.5 metres. Shorter than that and the kitchen feels cramped with more than one person in it; longer than that and you're walking laps to cook a simple meal.
Most Dhaka apartment kitchens fall into one of three shapes, and each one handles the triangle differently.
1. L-shaped — the default for a reason
An L-shaped layout puts the sink and stove on adjacent walls, with the fridge anchoring one end. It's the most common recommendation for apartment kitchens between 6 and 10 square metres because it keeps the triangle tight without boxing anyone in, and it leaves an open corner for a small dining table or breakfast counter if the room allows it.
2. Parallel (galley) — best for narrow kitchens
If your kitchen is a long, narrow room — common in older Dhaka flats — a parallel layout with counters facing each other usually beats forcing an L-shape into a space that doesn't have the width for it. The rule of thumb: leave at least 1.2 metres between the two counters so two people can pass, or so an oven door can open without blocking the aisle.
3. U-shaped — for larger kitchens with two cooks
Once a kitchen crosses roughly 10 square metres, a U-shaped layout uses the extra wall to add counter and storage without lengthening the walking distance between the three main points. It's the layout Midpoint recommends most often for family homes where more than one person cooks at once.
The layout mistake we see most often isn't the shape — it's sizing the cabinets to the wall instead of to the appliances that have to sit in them.
Measure the appliances before you measure the wall
A standard double-door refrigerator needs roughly 90 cm of width and at least 5 cm of clearance on the hinge side to open fully — a detail that's easy to miss when a floor plan is drawn to the wall dimensions only. The same goes for a chimney hood's duct routing and a gas line's fixed point: both are expensive to move once tiling starts, so they're the first two things Midpoint checks on a kitchen site visit, before any cabinet design begins.
Modular vs. site-built: the honest trade-off
A modular kitchen system is manufactured off-site to standard module widths (usually 30, 45, or 60 cm increments) and assembled on site. That means a faster turnaround and a more consistent finish than carpentry built entirely on site — but it also means the kitchen's dimensions have to work in those module increments, or you pay for custom-cut panels that erode the speed advantage. A site-built kitchen carpentry crew, on the other hand, can fit an oddly shaped wall or a non-standard alcove exactly, at the cost of a longer build time.
Most Dhaka apartments — with fairly standard room dimensions — are better served by modular systems. Older or irregularly shaped flats, or full duplex kitchens with a lot of custom storage, usually justify site-built carpentry instead.
A short checklist before you call anyone
- Measure wall-to-wall width and depth, and note where the gas line and drain currently sit.
- List every appliance you're keeping — fridge, oven, hood, dishwasher — with its actual width, not the "standard" size.
- Decide if you want an open counter for dining, since that changes which layout fits.
- Note your budget range before the first design meeting — it changes whether modular or site-built makes more sense.
Midpoint designs both modular and fully custom kitchen interiors in Dhaka, and starts every quote with a site visit rather than a catalogue — because the two measurements above are the ones that actually decide the layout.
