Leave at least 1050 mm between two facing runs of kitchen units, and 1200 mm if two people cook. The aisle is measured between the finished fronts, not between the walls, so a 1.05 m aisle in a galley with 600 mm units means a room 2.25 m wide. Below that, an open dishwasher door and a person occupy the same floor.
The widths
| Aisle | What it supports |
|---|---|
| 1050 mm | The minimum — one cook, doors and drawers open with a shuffle |
| 1200 mm | Two people, one passing behind the other while the first works |
| 1100 mm | What Gridsnap’s own layout engine composes an island at |
| 1500 mm+ | Wasted — the run stops being reachable from the other side |
Under 1050 mm the specific failure is not walking, it is doors. An oven door is about 550 mm deep when open, a dishwasher door about 600 mm. Open one across a 900 mm aisle and the aisle is gone. That is why the number is bigger than the 900 mm you would allow for a corridor.
Where it applies
The figure is for any two work surfaces facing each other:
- A galley — two parallel runs down a narrow room.
- An island or peninsula — the aisle between it and the wall run behind it.
- A U-shaped kitchen — the aisle across the open end of the U.
It does not apply to a run facing a wall with nothing on it, or facing a dining table. There you are back to normal circulation: 900 mm for a route, and enough to pull a chair out if there are chairs — see dining table clearance.
And it does not apply upwards: an aisle much wider than 1.2 m stops being a galley and starts being two separate kitchens you walk between. Past about 1.5 m you lose the pivot that makes a galley the most efficient kitchen shape there is.
Gridsnap checks this automatically
The rule is kitchen-practice, part of the Pro plan check, and the
constant is 1050 mm. The finding reads: “the aisle between facing kitchen
runs is under ~1050 mm — doors and people collide.”
For the rule to fire, two units — a Counter, Sink unit or Stove — have to genuinely face each other: their rotations within about 9° of opposite, and each one’s front pointing at the other. The aisle is then the gap between their front faces. Aisles under 100 mm are ignored, since that is two units drawn back to back rather than a galley.
Gridsnap only reports the first facing pair it finds on a floor, so fixing one tight aisle may reveal another.
When Gridsnap furnishes a room for you, it uses a slightly generous 1100 mm and only places an island in a room dedicated to being a kitchen — an island in an open-plan room ends up in the circulation.
What this doesn’t do
- A run facing a wall is not checked. Kitchen units 800 mm from a blank wall pass, even though that is the same collision.
- A run facing a table, a fridge or a sofa is not checked either. Only two facing kitchen units trigger the rule.
- Only one finding per floor. The rule stops at the first tight pair.
- 1050 mm is one cook. The check will not tell you the kitchen is too tight for two — for that, design to 1200 mm yourself.
- Corner clearances are not modelled. Two runs meeting at a right angle need the corner unit’s door to clear the run beside it; nothing tests that.