Designer Paul Noel didn’t know his time in St. John’s would be reflected in a kitchen.

The “Dream Home” currently on display at the Boston Design Center is like a real home in at least one respect — people tend to gravitate toward the kitchen. Nine different Boston designers each tackled a different room of the “house” — so, as you can imagine, it’s a showcase of talent and products — but, despite the tough competition, the kitchen is clearly a highlight.

One of the kitchen’s greatest attributes is that it doesn’t feel like a kitchen at all. At a time when we’re stuck in a black granite/stainless steel rut, obsessed with producing kitchens that are models of efficiency but oddly soulless, Noel draws his inspiration from a surprising source — the rainforest — and comes up with something wonderfully warm and serene.

We all know that dinner parties invariably start — and often end — in the kitchen, no matter how much money we may have spent redoing the living room. Noel says that’s because the roots of our affection for kitchens run long and deep. 

“It’s a comfort thing,” he says. “The first place you spent a lot of time in was the kitchen. It’s where we had milk and cookies after school. When we went to our grandmother’s house, we never spent time in the living room, we were always in the kitchen. When you get up in the middle of the night, where do you go for comfort? To the kitchen. It’s a childhood thing that stays with you.”

It wasn’t until after he started this kitchen project that he realized how much he was being influenced by the rainforest. He had spent a lot of time on St. John’s Island, secluded in a client’s mountainside retreat, where he saw firsthand the power and beauty of the rainforest.

He brought back its colors, in the regenerating green of the walls, the stool fabric, the “typhoon” green granite countertop, and the brown and green mosaic of the patchwork tile backsplash. The green serves as the background that makes the exquisite high gloss olivewood cabinets pop. Comfortable padded stools, oriented toward both the host and the windows, invite company.

As Noel worked on the project, he started making more connections to the rainforest, and he now sees a direct tie with kitchens. They are both places of sustenance. While in St. John’s he saw the life-sustaining role of the rainforest. And the analogy in a house is the kitchen.

“You can have a house without a dining room, a library or a guest room,” he says. “But you can’t have a house without a kitchen.”

He thinks that the colors he’s chosen for this “dream” kitchen — which are certainly “not mainstream” colors and are perhaps best orchestrated by a designer to keep them from getting out of control — are a return to the roots of a kitchen, a place where we used to have fun, painting walls with daring colors, and hanging curtains with striking floral designs.

“The kitchen has become a very cold space,” says Noel. “I think it’s because people are in such a rush, and they need the kitchen to be practical. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be beautiful and comfortable at the same time.”

Counter stools — Comfort is the key to the counter stools from Ritz Associates. These padded stools invite people to stay for a chat while the hosts toss a salad. And don’t be surprised if the meal never makes it to the dining room, and everyone ends up staying at the counter to eat.

Countertop — Quick, what color granite countertops have you ever seen? Black, and brown, and beige and...? Well, it doesn’t really cost you any more for this beautiful “typhoon” green granite countertop from Tile Showcase, but the effect can be dazzling.

 Cabinets — The stunning, variegated coloring of the olivewood laminate cabinets by Alno USA is both eye-catching and warm, and a welcome change from the maple cabinets that are the go-to choice of a million kitchen remodels. Designer Paul J. Noel says the unique wood grain makes the cabinets “very contemporary, but they also have an old-world quality.”

 Backsplash — Noel was thrilled when he found this backsplash, also from Tile Showcase. The checkerboard pattern tied together all the colors in his kitchen. The browns connect with the cabinets, and the greens connect with both the wall covering and the granite countertop, unifying his vision for the kitchen.