Research Journal of International Studies ISSN: 1453-212X Issue 23 (2012) © EuroJournals Publishing, Inc. 2012 http://www.eurojournals.com/international_studies.htm © Research Journal of International Studies - Issue 23 (March, 2012) 143 Effects of Changing Life Styles and Globalizing Tendencies on Kitchen Size and Design: Turkey as a Case Muteber Erbay Assist Proffessor, Karadeniz Technical University Faculty of Architecture, Trabzon, Turkey E-mail: merbay@ktu.edu.tr Nilgun Kuloglu Assist Proffessor, Karadeniz Technical University Faculty of Architecture, Trabzon, Turkey E-mail: melek@ktu.edu.tr Sengul Oymen Gur Proffessor, Beykent University Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, Istanbul, Turkey E-mail: sengul@gur.com Sengul Yalcinkaya Erol Assist Proffessor, Karadeniz Technical University Faculty of Architecture, Trabzon, Turkey E-mail: sengulyk@yahoo.com Abstract This article renders results and interpretations of a study of house area, kitchen area, and the ratio of kitchen area to overall floor area of houses, in the context of social mass housing, through a historical comparative analysis of working class housing in Turkey and Europe in the modern period, for the purpose of determining the impact of globalization on cultures and eating habits, domestic gender roles, and domestic technology. Based on the statistical tests one might say that the data drawn from each of the cases, of Europe and Turkey, do not correlate. Each runs its own course until the 1990s, whereupon, after the affects of globalization are largely felt, the three variables - house area, kitchen area, and kitchen floor area as a percentage of total house floor area - seem to converge and simulate one another (Turkey: 8.7%; Europe: 8.5%). The practiced size for kitchens in Turkey seems to be around 10.5 sq m and for those in Europe, around 9.5 sq m. Moreover, a significant preference for ‘multi-purpose living rooms’ that accommodate basic kitchen functions emerged in mass housing projects both in Europe and in Turkey after the 1990s. Turkish and European houses with this type of living room are almost equal in size, approximately 100 sq m in Turkey and 90sq m in Europe. The approximate mean area of living rooms in such dwellings is 27sq m, which represents 28% of the entire floor area of such a home in Turkey. The similar statistics are 38 sq m and 44% for such homes in Europe.