Culinary Expansion: The Design Philosophy Behind the D8 Kitchen Drawer

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Culinary Expansion: The Design Philosophy Behind the D8 Kitchen Drawer

There is a very special space.

It's right at the back of your van, and you can only access it from the outside, when you open out the rear doors. You reach down, and pull on what appears to be a door to the storage under your bed. Except it's not. It's a whole kitchen. A drawer within a drawer, sliding out a full 110cm: a telescopic kitchen that opens up more than a wide range of storage and food prep surfaces–it opens your van to a new kind of dining.

The Origami of Living

The Japanese have a word: ma–the space between things, the pause that gives meaning to sound, the emptiness that defines form. This kitchen drawer embodies ma. When closed, it is potential; when extended, it is becoming.

In our sedentary lives, we accept that kitchens occupy fixed territories–islands of granite that stake permanent claims on square footage. But in a van, in motion, in life lived between destinations, we discover something our ancestors knew: that home is not a place but a practice, not a room, but a ritual of unfolding.

The D8 drawer extends in two stages: first 70cm, then another 40cm with the cutlery drawer. This is not mere engineering–this is poetry written in telescopic rails and birch plywood. It speaks to the Russian nesting doll philosophy of van life: each element contains another, each space births new space, each limitation reveals possibility.

Threshold Living

The ancient Romans believed thresholds were sacred, protected by Janus, the two-faced god who looked both forward and back, inside and out. Every threshold is a choice point, a decision made manifest.

When you slide this kitchen out the back of your van, you create a threshold–a liminal space between interior and exterior, between vehicle and landscape, between journey and arrival. You stand with the sun on your shoulders, the doors around you, your butt on the floor of your van and your feet in wherever you've chosen to stop.

You are neither fully domestic nor fully wild. You are cooking, that most civilizing of acts, but you're doing it in the wind, under open sky. Sheltered by the van’s opened doors, your Camping Gaz stove holds its flame steady, a small sun you've harnessed, while around you the larger world carries on its ancient conversations with itself.

The Philosophy of Enough

How much kitchen does one need? The question seems absurd until you're living in 4 square meters. Then it becomes the most important question in the world. The D8 drawer answers with elegant economy: enough storage for cookware and provisions, enough surface to work, enough extension to serve.

Enough is perhaps the most revolutionary concept of our time. In a culture of excess, of always-more, of infinite scroll and endless expansion, van life whispers a different gospel: enough is a feast. The restriction becomes the revelation.

The Ceremony of Preparation

When you pull open the D8, you're not just accessing storage–you're beginning a ceremony. The first slide reveals your pots, your plates, your dry goods. The second extension offers the small drawer, like an altar where you arrange your implements: the knife that has traveled with you through three countries, the wooden spoon your friend carved, the little dish for olive oil and salt.

Food preparation becomes meditation. The van door frames your view like a painting, ever-changing: today pine forest, tomorrow coastal headland, next week alpine meadow. You chop vegetables in rhythm with the landscape's breath.

An Invitation to Unfold

The D8 kitchen drawer is, finally, an invitation. It invites you to unfold, to extend, to slide out into your fullest expression. It suggests that life, like this drawer, can be compact when needed and expansive when desired. It promises that you can carry everything essential and still move freely.

Every time you slide it open, you're making a choice–not just to cook, but to pause, to engage with place, to transform raw ingredients into nourishment while standing in the ever-shifting gallery of the world.

The drawer extends. The kitchen unfolds. You begin to cook. And in that moment, standing there with the sun warming your shoulders and your hands moving through familiar motions in an unfamiliar landscape, you understand: You are home. You have always been home. Home is not the drawer or the van or any particular place. Home is the unfolding.

Practical Notes:

• Designed for: Simple Classic kits (B120, B4)

• Extension: Two-stage telescopic drawer (70 cm + 40 cm cutlery drawer)

• Material: Lightweight poplar plywood with stainless hardware

• Compatible with: Portable hobs (including those used in C5 and C6 front units with integrated hob drawers)

• Made in France

Tag: vanlife, Simple Vans, campervan accessories, French poplar plywood, Made in France

Kitchen Draw - D8

€239.00 (tax incl.)

Simple Meals, Simple Life: The Slide Out Kitchen Draw

Our slide out draw offers 70cm of prep space and storage for essentials, all in a lightweight, cost-effective design. Fits all new B120 beds (2024+). Upgrade your vanlife today!

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