Start designing with an open book
If one of the most difficult things about building or renovating a house is knowing our own minds – our needs, our wants and our tastes – then it must be doubly hard for designers to figure out what to deliver.
The tried and true starting point might be flicking through a pile of interiors magazines with the client and picking out a handful of homes and styles that appeal – but there has to be a better way.
In a market flooded with ideas, it’s difficult not to become completely overwhelmed with the sheer variety of what’s on offer.
Which is precisely what made the people at Hettich think of creating a book that could get designers and their clients started.
The idea would be to cheekily categorise us all – and the places we live in – into four broad “Living Worlds”.
Living Worlds would divide us up into: Modern, Classic, Calm and Natural “style personalities”.
“Apart from being a lot fun, we thought it would be a wonderful starting point for dreaming up a home that reflects who we are and who we want to be,” explains Aidan Jury, managing sirector sales & marketing of Hettich Australia and New Zealand.
“We imagined the brackets would take in everyone and everything from the sharply contemporary, to the carefully considered lives and aesthetic of classic individuals, to lovers of a cosier family environment, to the naturally inclined and environmentally conscious.”
That’s not to say there isn’t a great deal of crossing over among the camps – and not a little blurring between them – but the point is that these four do constitute some clearly identifiable types of interiors and the people who live in them.
Living Worlds is a series (volume one focusing on kitchens and bathrooms) designed to be the first few words in a fascinating discussion.
The first 180-page edition is to be launched in Melbourne at Designex on April 21.
“It’s meant to be the spark for a rewarding conversation between clients and design professionals about specific wants, needs and likes,” says Jury. “The book is also intended to be a dialogue between Hettich and anyone who is interested in good design and things that work.
Featuring at designEx, stand No. M14 (suite 3).
3-May-2006