Johnny Grey

Johnny Grey (born 1951) is a British designer of kitchens.

Johnny Grey (born 10 March 1951) is a British designer, author and educator, specialising in kitchens. He is widely acknowledged to have been at the forefront of kitchen design since the 1980s, aiming above all to make kitchens the sociable heart of the home. He runs Johnny Grey Studios, which has designed kitchens for high profile clients since 1978, has authored five books, and is Visiting Professor of Design and Kitchen Culture at Bucks New University.

Grey read architecture at the Architectural Association from 1970–76 (AA Dip Arch), studying under Jeremy Dixon and Mike Gold. One of the first kitchens he designed was for his food writer aunt, Elizabeth David, who indelibly influenced his thinking.

Whilst studying architecture, Grey focused on craft aspects of historic buildings, dealing and restoring antique eighteenth century furniture with his brother. After graduating he set up a workshop making furniture and kitchens in a Sussex barn. His career took off in 1980 with a Sunday Times article, "Why this awful fixation with fitted kitchens?".

Grey’s 'Unfitted' kitchen is known for using original freestanding furniture combined with ergonomics, aiming to create efficient, friendly kitchen spaces, experienced like traditional furnished rooms, in contrast with wall-based fitted cabinetry common at that time and still prevalent today.

Grey’s studio adapts interiors into sociable kitchens, "living rooms in which you cook", that are linked to the garden and outdoor spaces. Architecture and product and lighting design form part of this work, which is based on insights from neuroscience. Each project is an individual case.

Johnny Grey Studios have worked all over the world, from Ancona, Burgundy, Barbados, Cyprus, Jersey, Limerick, Melbourne, Mustique and Rome to Zurich.

USA projects began in 1994. Grey currently collaborates with San Francisco architect Kevin Hackett. Over thirty JG projects have been installed across the US including showcase houses in San Francisco and New York.

Over his career Johnny Grey has been responsible for a series of innovations in kitchen design, ideas that permanently altered the way kitchens are lived in, manufactured and sold.

In the late 1970s he adapted the end-grain butchers’ chopping block for domestic use, incorporating this into a piece of freestanding furniture, often with a drawer or two. He launched the Unfitted Kitchen, made up of freestanding furniture, in 1984. This at the time unorthodox idea attracted some criticism for its nostalgia and lack of application for small kitchens. The enduringly popular practice of using woven willow baskets as drawers was introduced by Grey as part of the Unfitted Kitchen. Willow baskets woven into cabinetry were registered by Grey jointly with Smallbone of Devizes in 1987 for copyright, though Mark Wilkinson raised the objection that basketry can be traced to historic African applications.

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