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Design Narrative: A Conversation about Materiality & Sustainable Kitchen Design

VOL 1.

Design Narrative: A Conversation about Materiality & Sustainable Kitchen Design

Who’s at the dinner table?

In the construction industry, the journey of joinery design to manufacture is typically long, with the baton of responsibility passed through many hands. Not at Cantilever. As product designers and manufacturers, we design what we make, and what we make, we know.

In celebration of the re-launch of our K2 Kitchen System, we shared an open invitation to our clients and peers to join us to hear the stories behind the brands that make the materials we use in our Kitchens, and why we choose them. The lasting question from the evening, what is design for longevity, what does it mean, how long is longevity?

I invite you to find out, and hope you enjoy this excerpt from our discussions. — KYLIE FORBES Creative Director, Cantilever Interiors

Editor’s Note

Design Narrative: A Conversation about Materiality & Sustainable Kitchen Design

Travis Dean

MANAGING DIRECTOR CANTILEVER INTERIORS

Kylie Forbes

CREATIVE DIRECTOR CANTILEVER INTERIORS

Tamsin O’Neil EDITOR GREEN MAGAZINE

Green Magazine hosts Green Talks to connect community with experts-offield, and share sustainably focussed industry knowledge to better the build outcomes of Australia.

This is a verbatim transcript, unedited to ensure integrity and to capture the true conversations of the evening.

Baddal Bayer

Tommy Arvanitis

COSENTINO AUSTRALIA

BLUM

Nic Naes V-ZUG

Panel Experts

Deniz Comlekcioglu

FRANCHI UMBERTO MARMI AUSTRALIA

Robert Elton ELTON GROUP

Design Narrative: A Conversation about Materiality & Sustainable Kitchen Design

What I often hear from lots of serious environmentalists is that the best renovation is the one that doesn’t happen. Now we all know that that’s not something very practical when things are falling to pieces. But surely then the best renovation then is the one that considers longevity. My dad was an architect and in 1967 he designed our kitchen in a Victorian house, simple little kitchen, quite a striking kitchen, and we recently sold his house with the original kitchen, it was getting really old, but everything was still working. And that was because he made sure that he used the best materials and sought the best appliances. It lasted 55 years.

Building a kitchen that is robust and longlasting is surely the most sustainable investment you can make when renovating, one that has the toughest surfaces and appliances that are built to last. Today I am joined at this dinner table on the conversation about kitchen with our hosts Kylie and Travis of Cantilever and their partners Blum, FUM, Elton Group, Consentino and V-Zug.

Tamsin: Green Mag

Design Narrative: A Conversation about Materiality & Sustainable Kitchen Design

So, for a little bit about us for those you don’t know much about Cantilever. We formed in 2006, we started in a shared workshop up in another place in Brunswick. It was a multi art discipline space, with photographers, ceramicists, furniture makers, painters. And we were all working as individual furniture makers and we decided to organically form Cantilever. We started working on bigger projects mainly architectural joinery back then so, building other people’s designs. And then we slowly wanted to get back into building our own designs, we were all individual furniture makers. So back in 2010 we launched our first kitchen range, the K1. And then we moved onto the K2 kitchen, which was released in 2012, and by then we had moved to this workshop on Barkly St. When we designed K2 in particular, we really wanted to focus on the sustainability of the materials and where they were sourced, and how they came together, so we began to do some more research. And back then,

in 2012, sustainability was very new, and so for us we had to work out what sustainability meant for us. And we were using materials and finishes that were perceived as sustainable, but we needed something that was more tangible. And we found a document that was written by Mark McDonald he has basically gone around Europe and visited 14 large kitchen manufacturers like Blum. And what he fundamentally learnt was that we need to build our products with great care and quality. And that is essentially how we have approached our work in the sense of, if we can build kitchens fit for purpose, that suit the client’s requirements and they are made from materials that are durable and sustainable then that is the best we can do. Being a product-based company means that we can optimise our material usage and have a looped conversation around our material function and durability with the installers, workshop team and clients.

Travis: Cantilever

We love the K2 kitchen, it is very adaptable, we can change the shape of it to fit into any space. And we like the idea of a design classic, now we won’t say that that is a design classic, but the concept of a design idea that is revisited and designed to reflect the current market and style. With our kitchens, because they are live, in the sense that when new materials, hardware and technology come into the space they go through a process of being updated in the back end and that is filtered through to the final product. And that kitchen in the front was starting to date in some of those details, it felt like a product that was still valid and still met the needs of the clients. And felt like a good continuation of the connections and relationships that we had built over the years. Blum we have been working with since the start, from a sustainability point of view, they are on the fore front of whats happening.

Design Narrative: A Conversation about Materiality & Sustainable Kitchen Design

One of the things that is quite noticeable every time we visit a Cantilever Kitchen is that they are actually very well-known for their elegance. A couple of things that do come to mind from our perspective is beauty and practicality and that’s where we think Blum does bring a key sense of care when it comes to creating that functional space. But along with that we do pride ourselves in terms of the way fittings function today should also function tomorrow, we don’t use the word loosely, lifetime warranty, just for the sake of it, we mean it because our products have been tried and tested. So, if we use hinge systems as an example, they are tested for life cycles, so a life cycle is represented by an open and closing action and they are tested for over two hundred thousand life cycles which is more than the actual average life expectancy of a hinge system. So, therefore we can be proud that we can support the needs of Cantilever’s products and what their customers do really want which is obviously longevity. Our internal quality management system complies to ISO 9001, which is what certifies our claims. So hopefully that provides peace of mind when it does come to applying or specifying Blum hardware, that it will stand the test of time.

Tommy: Blum

For us, we have got to consider all the different consumers out there as everyone has a different take on how they use their kitchen and on what is important. Some care a lot about high stain and scratch resistance, while some are more about the feel of the materials. And so that is where we moved onto marble, we hadn’t used much marble until we did EDIT, so it has been very interesting to use, it is very emotive, many people connect to it on an emotional level, and I think that it is very similar to a lot of natural materials. And it ages in time, and lives with you and is very tactile and of course every piece is a different piece. And it holds temperature so it is good for baking and everything. Like solid timber, its very precious.

Travis: Cantilever

Design Narrative: A Conversation about Materiality & Sustainable Kitchen Design

I am a part of a company who was established in 1971, in Tuscany in Italy. And we own a number of quarries, it’s quite a large space for anyone that has travelled to Tuscany. You may have driven past it and seen some snow-capped peaks and they are some of the open cut quarries. So, a lot of our material comes out of there and we have been in Australia for 27 years now.

In Australia especially, we are probably one of the few or only companies that controls the whole supply chain as far as the materials quarrying, handling and processing goes, until it reaches us in slab format and we distribute that to stone masons. And they would then process it for a kitchen. Because of the strict guidelines that the European Union has on how we can licence the quarries that we do, because no one really owns the quarry, its licenced to you for a period of time, assessed on a myriad of accountability’s when it comes to the fees attached to it

Deniz: FUM

and the environmental issues. So we have been changing our process in how we mine for example, we used to be open cut and now we have these things called galleries, which are little pin holes on the side of the mountain, little meaning they are big enough for a couple trucks to fit through, and then we tunnel through to create these galleries where we take out blocks, and so far none of the galleries have ever retired. They are basically allowing us to leave the flora and fauna on the outside of the mountain intact so that we are not destroying as much of the environmental space as we used to. Our water is almost 100% recycled and I don’t know if anyone knows about this, but stone masonry does use a lot of water so all of that water is recycled. On average each quarry

would have about 30-35% of wastage in products. So we’ve developed technologies that adhere a lot of that and now we have dropped that waste component to 1% approximately. So, everything that comes out has a purpose and a market segment, as we sell to the US, Europeans, as well as Australia.

is to elevate our understanding of this medium. And similar to what you said before about hardwood or leather, imagine that this is more of an organic thing, that with you it will change and will tell your story a little bit when you’re no longer there, and that’s sort of the idea behind our longevity.

Other than that, marble we see is not just slabs for kitchens and tiles, for us it is a medium more than anything else, its one way that we have communicated and tried to leave our message in some way. And you are hundred percent right about the emotional experience people go through, it engages people on a strange level, that I agree with because I went into it and I’m still there twenty years later. It a wonderful product, and one thing that we do have to do

Design Narrative: A Conversation about Materiality & Sustainable Kitchen Design

Elton Group, is a somewhat new group to us. We were having a few issues with supply, quality of material and consistency (of the previous Blackbutt Veneer we used) and also where the materials were being sourced. So we wanted to look into an option that was more aligned with maintaining quality, using sustainable products that were sourced from plantation. So it was just about shifting the finishes to reflect the current market, as things have changed in the last 20 years.

Travis: Cantilever

Design Narrative: A Conversation about Materiality & Sustainable Kitchen Design

It’s quite nice to sit at a table with such like-minded people, and hear all your stories. It’s quite nice to sit at a table with such like-minded people, and hear all your stories. Sometimes as a supplier you’re so fixated on your own product you don’t get to see what holds it together and what complements it and so it is definitely nice to see that we are not the only company out there with this mentality. I’m a third-generation nephew at Elton Group, so my uncle’s uncle started the company eighty years ago, its transformed and we’re celebrating our thirty years now as Elton group. Eveneer is our hero product, and timber veneer, so working with timber has always been something that’s really interesting because I think it’s something that’s fluctuated as a product in perception of is it sustainable, is it not

sustainable. You’re cutting down trees to the point where it’s like holding carbon, it’s a renewable product, its nature’s material. Timber veneer is basically thin pieces of wood and eveneer is a recut of timber veneer. As opposed to going out in Australia and finding maybe a spotted gum and felling that tree and using that wood and slicing that into timber veneer.

What eveneer is, is growing trees that are typically found in wetlands, so they grow in ten-year cycles, they are all sustainably harvested trees, so one of the companies that we used to make eveneer actually owns those forests and controls those forests, and they are all FSC certified.

Rob: Elton Group

So what we are doing now is we are using those types of species and we are pretty much taking the already cut timber and we recut it, turn it, peel it and reconstruct it and put it back into another log. What that allows us to do it to get full utilisation of the wood, and you can get high yield, consistency in the colour and in the grain. Shift one is from natural veneer, to our recut Eveneer, like our heritage brand under Elton Group. First someone has to take the first step for this product to be available, and we’re not manufacturing this product, we found this product. These guys are in Italy, they go by the name of Alpi, a very reputable brand, and they were the leaders in this type of recut timber veneer. Alpi is so inspiring, we’ve worked with them for some

time now, we have our bespoke range of Eveneer. And again, they get full utilisation of the log and continue to get better.

Pivot two was going from Eveneer to Evenex, so we still have Eveneer and still love it. Going to Evenex from Eveneer was identifying the fact that we are losing our timber veneer sales to plastic melamine’s, to high pressure laminates. And then we came across Evenex. Which is the only product that we as a timber veneer company felt comfortable to provide the market. It’s realistic because it has fibres, pores and reflects light differently, and there is no PVC or melamines, and is made out of wood fibre and FSC approved.

Design Narrative: A Conversation about Materiality & Sustainable Kitchen Design

Vzug we worked on EDIT with our last kitchen range, and in the luxury appliance market from my position, there is VZug, Sub Zero, Wolf and Gaggenau. For us, VZug really aligns with our design principals, and they are one of those companies that lead on sustainability. And little things like their dishwashers and how when they catch the excess water from the last wash and use it in the first cycle of the next wash, just little things like that that are attractive to us, and there are also many other things.

Travis: Cantilever

Design Narrative: A Conversation about Materiality & Sustainable Kitchen Design

Our business is sort of anchored around some key pillars, design is one. Another area that is important for us is the innovation, and this is at the heart of a Swiss company, we produce everything in Zugg. Zugg is a small town in Switzerland just half an hour south from Zurich, and like most towns and business, and cities in Switzerland are based near a lake and they are one of the most beautiful places in the world. We’ve been a business since 1913, but the internationalization of this brand and business only started around 10 or so years ago. As the business started to look at international expansion, we’ve opened in many places across the world with our showrooms, and to some companies this would have been very tempting to take this production and move it to Germany where the production is cheaper or move to Austria or Italy, or any neighbouring country where labour and production is arguably much cheaper. But the owner and the board believed that we would have the best opportunities for innovation if we kept the design production and the manufacturing in one place. This is because then Martin and our design

Nic: V-ZUG

team can see a sketch in the morning and then go and walk down and talk to the manufacturing team 150 metres away, we also have this controlled production and closed circuit. In Zugg we are only a couple of metres away from the lake, and in Europe they are currently going through a heat wave, so it would be 34 degrees right now in Zugg. Switzerland is very focused on sustainability, so they don’t allow air conditioning unless it is in a hospital. So due to that heat, we have been maximising it. So, we have drilled a hole under the town, we can take water from the lake to cool down our production and then in winter, we do the opposite and pump the water into the grid to warm up the town. In doing that we recognise that we do have some emissions, doing what we do, so we have a self-imposed tax on the business, and this is calculated by how people travel to work and how much we produce. And I think in it globally agreed that one way to offset emissions is by greenery. So, we have partnered with an organization and begun a project called V-Forest in Scotland. So, we are providing and

replanting forest in Scotland to offset the emissions that we produce. Our business has also been carbon neutral since 2020, but this is something that we don’t talk about a lot, some businesses are like ‘were going to be carbon neutral by 2030’, but for us becoming carbon neutral was not an objective, it was something that happened, and we’ve done it so we’re now moving forward.

But when it comes to topic of sustainability there really is no reason to be humble because it comes so closely with what we are doing. Partially because we consider it during the different parts of designing the product, we always try to look for consistencies and what component can be shared with all the products. And this is something that has pioneered some brands, having a component that is shared throughout the products, and some would say that that is lazy, but it means that many for us it provides speed in services and maximizing the use of materials and makes the whole process of designing very efficient. Many years ago, we were pioneering the use of heat pumps in dryers, I mean in this day and age there is nothing unique about a heat pump dryer but 25 years ago when we started it, it changed the way the Swiss government looked at dryer appliances so much that they changed

the regulations and banned the other two types. So, we all own heat pump dryers, but still to this day we’re the only ones that have heat pump washing machine, the only company to have a heat pump dishwasher. These sorts of thing come into the innovation and is in the psyche of how a Swiss business operates, it’s sort of guides us and our principals and our goals. Things like a triple bottom line [People, Planet, Profit] which is very important. We have a very high consideration for people not just the people in our team, and we are a small business in comparison to the appliance brands that you may be more familiar with, it’s like comparing Travis with IKEA. But the upside of that is that we are much closer with our customers and what is going on. And now what we are preparing for in Australia, is a project called Second Life. As the products we make do last a long time, when you have machines that have water and electricity run through them, they will come to an end, so then the way we create our products allows us to take it apart easily and re use the materials and parts. In Zugg we produce up to five hundred thousand appliances per year, which to some may seem like a very big number but there are many brands that sell that quantity in Australia alone. And we are a boutique brand in that way and that is what guides us and what we do.

Design Narrative: A Conversation about Materiality & Sustainable Kitchen Design

We’ve also worked with Consentino, when we did the K2 in 2012, we did a lot of research on bench tops. And for us bench tops, and all the other materials must meet a quality level, a durability level, a price point, and they’ve got to be attractive to the market. We came across a product called Eco by Consentino which I think in today’s market would have been really popular, but they have stopped producing it in Australia, so we have ran out of market of it, but the product was made of 75% postconsumer waste which was amazing. But from that process we moved onto using a product called Dekton, and Dekton meets that high level durability, high scratch, high heat and high stain resistant level and they come in big slab and great colours.

Travis: Cantilever

Design Narrative: A Conversation about Materiality & Sustainable Kitchen Design

Sustainability has been at the fore front of our company for quite some time now. To give you a bigger idea of what our plant is and where its located, we’re a Spanish company and it’s in a very arid area, it’s almost like a desert, the renewable energy that we need to power the plant is a vast amount of water, vast amount of electricity and there is a lot of wastage that goes on. So, quite a few years ago we thought about what we’re doing and that we need to take some sort of stance in climate change and sustainability. So, right now as a company, we have approximately 40 hectares of a solar plant with solar panels that powers our factory, we also recycle 99% of our water which we use to make the slabs, be it either Dekton or style stone. There is also our waste management plan, so with Dekton, its cradle to grave so nothing gets wasted, if we produced a thousand

slabs that didn’t pass Quality Control, they would go back to the waste management plant and be made into new slabs of Dekton. We’ve also got Silestone, we developed a hybrid technology approximately 9 years ago, again that is using recycled water and renewable energy, and 20% recycled materials as well. We’ve also thought about the health and safety aspect, as you would all know, you’ve probably seen on the news about the crystalline silica, we’ve reduced the amount of crystalline silica in our products do below 40% which is a Q40 and a Q10 which is below 10%. The aim is that the whole range will be under 5%, so as a company we rely heavily on sustainability, we’re a family-owned business that operates globally as well.

Baddal: Cosentino

Design Narrative: A Conversation about Materiality & Sustainable Kitchen Design

MILLS ST, 2017 →

K2 Projects

WALSH ST, 2021 →

BARKLY ST, 2016 →

ELGIN ST, 2022 →

We share with you a variety of K2 projects, which showcase the diversity the product can offer our clients, and also date marks, which share the consistency of our work and the continuing aesthetic adaptability and relevance of the product. Our product centric approach provides certainty for our clients on many levels, like quality of material and workmanship, of finish, aesthetic, functionality, feel. We adapt our product to the demands of our client’s project.

Design Narrative: A Conversation about Materiality & Sustainable Kitchen Design

CAPE SCHANCK, 2019 →

Design Narrative: A Conversation about Materiality & Sustainable Kitchen Design

I love that our products push into different visual territories, whilst retaining an inherently ‘Cantilever’ look. I believe that design for longevity can be achieved through a variety of lens’. Palette and price-point adaptability is an important part of our offer. As a part of our K2 refresh, I prepared a collection of palettes to share the breadth of possibility in the new finishes. K2 offers the most flexibility of palette of our Kitchen Systems. The combination of Natural or composite stone, two pack paint, and timber elements through cabinetry, or display provides enormous diversity. To create the palettes, I worked with our Suppliers to select a group of my favourite, and fairly reliable to source, Natural Stone options. I then created tri-colour compliments of two pack, to pair with Evenex, Silestone and Dekton. The creative direction of the campaign contemplated the scale of mountains, natures’ variety of rock forms and their intrigue, the fall of leaves, feathers and branches that create the litter that creates the soil that creates in time, the stone, the forest. — KYLIE FORBES

K2 Palette

K1.1

Design Narrative: A Conversation about Materiality & Sustainable Kitchen Design

K2.4

K2.3

K2.5

K2.2 K2.6

Design Narrative: A Conversation about Materiality & Sustainable Kitchen Design

K2.7

The Event

Thank you to Tamsin and the Green press team for inviting us to be part of this Green Talks conversation. A special thanks to the guest panel who added insightful perspective and brought so much energy to the evening alongside our team who transformed the workshop into a thriving creative space and welcomed guests. A warm thanks to Ace Brunswick, Firecracker Events and Ross Gardan for providing the most breathtaking chandelier.

View our K2 System →

cantileverinteriors.com @cantileverinteriors

Design Narrative _ A Conversation about Materiality & Sustainable Kitchen Design