Canny Lubelso Hawthorn
Dan Anthony
Combining generous space, abundant natural light, flowing, well-proportioned rooms, elegant finishes and luxurious German appliances, Canny's Lubelso designs have been shaking up the housing industry and redefining preconceived notions on design integrity, delivery time and price.
Having featured heavily in the media in recent times, we spoke to the team at Canny responsible for this revolutionary new design to find out what all the fuss is about.
Q: Which elements and principles of design have you tried to emphasise with the Lubelso Hawthorn home?
A: The project offers a balance between a strong street presence, clean architectural form, warm interior palette, and its well-considered landscape spaces. Rooms are designed to allow occupants to share the same spaces in contrasting ways, offering the versatility that a modern family requires. The living room allows for a dinner party group to interact boisterously with one another in a voluminous space, or a lone occupant to enjoy quiet time on the sofa by the fireplace. Living areas expand through to the alfresco and courtyards allowing for integration of the interior and outdoor spaces providing an extension of lifestyle.
Q: The home has been featured a lot in the press lately, as well as winning a number of awards. What were these for?
A: Lubelso’s previous concept home in Malvern won three housing industry awards including last year’s HIA Australian Overall Project Home of the Year. A true testament to the architectural integrity and build quality evident in the home. Yes, our clients loved it and it seems the media did as well, it was highly published and shared by design enthusiasts around the world. The new Concept Home in Hawthorn exhibits similar style and design to its Malvern predecessor, yet is subtly refined in size and features a lighter colour palette, we expect to great things for this new Lubelso home.
Q: What are the advantages of choosing a pre-designed home?
A: The certainty integrated project delivery offers allows clients to step into an architecturally designed, quality built home with all the high-end appointments you would expect of a custom home, yet for 30% less. The pre-designed format saves clients time in eliminating lengthy design and development phases, meaning they can move in in as little as 10 months. This formula is simple and proven, the process definitely seen as a benefit for busy families who like the immediacy of the luxury living Lubelso offers.
Q: How much do the designs differ from one to the next? Does the owner have much input in the design?
A: Lubelso’s range is extensive. From the single storey series, to double storey and then dual-occ options, in a range of styles (such as Early Modern, Contemporary, Traditional and 50’s Modernist). In addition, Canny’s in-house design team ‘Canny Architecture’ can customise Lubelso plans to suit block shapes, sizes and client preferences, such as extra ensuites, basements, media rooms etc. Anything is achievable, it just depends on the client’s budget and preferred delivery timeframe.
Q: Which appliances have you chosen to use and why?
A: We chose NEFF purely for the exceptional quality. The appliances are clean looking in appearance, easy to operate and have wonderful features.As an example, the nominated oven has a slide & hide door, which not only is space saving, but allows easy and safe access to oven cavity whilst cooking.This is an excellent feature, especially in a galley-style kitchen, allowing the smooth operation of the door to fold down and slide entirely under the unit. Also, the second oven, is in fact a combination oven, grill and microwave, which eliminates the need for a separate microwave in the kitchen and effectively providing additional oven space for the larger family. Together these appliances are installed in wall as a tower, so not only do they look very smart, but they function so well in this space. The large 90cm gas hob is stainless steel with 5 robust cast iron trivets, including a central wok burner.
We find most of our clients do more cooking on a cook top, so the need for a larger size is very important.Also, given the families generally have young children, safety around naked flames is important to parents. Neff cooktops have flame failure safety devices for all their cooktops, which is very appealing to our clients.
We consistently specify Liebherr fridges as they are a premium appliance offering flexibility with refrigerator and freezer options as well as finish and design.The integrated models that are in our LUBELSO homes allow our refrigerators and freezers to be hidden behind custom cabinetry doors, keeping a seamless appearance with the rest of the kitchen.The freezer space is made up of drawers which more and more of our clients prefer for ease of access and storage to their frozen foods.Liebherr fridges are also almost completely silent in operation, which is also an important quality, given its the one of the only appliances in the whole house constantly running.