The team at Oracle Platinum Homes used the new material when they were designing the ‘Aegis’ for the Pallara Display Village in Queensland, and it has resulted in a highly impressive home that is generating plenty of interest, and they love the end result.

Oracle Platinum Homes have been transitioning their business since the beginning of the year to build premium homes.  Having experienced rapid growth with new branding and receiving much positive feedback on the high standard of workmanship in their homes, they were looking for products to support their new positioning.

The styling of the home has been detailed by the inhouse Oracle Platinum Homes Design Team. Victoria Dundas, Design Team Leader, said “the home has been inspired by industrial and commercial aspects for those who love to regularly entertain. We wanted to make sure that the façade and interiors would work in harmony to achieve this look. I find that industrial architecture, especially, has a lot of exposed timber and concrete elements, and the Territory Woodlands Teak and Quarry have merged together to create a perfect combination on the Aegis.”

In order to achieve a wow factor required from the design brief, the team thought a key element for the interiors would be to create a feeling of a professional kitchen in a home environment. The kitchen was a focus area, together with the expansive living/dining area in the home’s design footprint.

The team introduced a material palette of dark colours, stainless steel and concrete and wood accents to give the look of an open, commercial kitchen, similar to that of the stylish dining districts in Brisbane. This is where the idea came from to extend the use of the façade material, Cemintel’s Territory Quarry product, for a drop down ceiling in the kitchen to really add an industrial edge to the design.

Impressed with the use of Territory Quarry in the kitchen, the product’s application was then broadened to all three adjacent walls of the stunning open tread staircase. This allowed for the industrial style to continue through to the upstairs area.

When asked what she thought about the Territory range, Dundas said, “I love how versatile the product is. It can withstand the harsh elements of the Australian environment on the outside of a home, and yet be stylish enough for use internally. Being able to link the outside with the inside is important to make the design flow. Every finish in the range has a good colour palette to work with and this makes it appealing to use on many other projects.”

As the product was unfamiliar to the Design Team, they took advantage of the extra design assistance offered by Cemintel. They were provided with 3D renderings to visualise the concept which enabled them to analyse the design and institute any key changes to their selections before making any final decisions.

The product was also unfamiliar to the Construction Team. To help build confidence and overcome any uncertainty, Cemintel had onsite support to assist with all aspects of the installation.   Construction Supervisor, Peter McGown, said “the product was pretty self-explanatory, but given we hadn’t used it before, and there are always little tricks to understand, Cemintel offered great support to ensure the installation went smoothly. As it was the first time we had used it, it was a little more labour intensive than we expected, but the end result has been well worth it. We can certainly see after using it again and again, it will become a real time saver for future installations as it is an easy system to work with.”

New to the concept of prefinished products like Territory, the visitors to Oracle’s display home are most impressed with the low maintenance aspect of the products, particularly for Woodlands Teak when compared to real timber.  However, while the key selling point is the low maintenance, the actual appearance of the Urban Grey and Woodlands Teak products rate highly with customers.  They are quite surprised that the product is installed as you see it, and that it doesn’t require any painting or other finishing on site.

Sales Manager for Oracle Platinum Homes, Chris Peters, said that they were overwhelmed with the positive response from the traffic through the home.  “Everyone loves the Territory products because they look quite authentic for an imitation product, especially for a material like timber, and people can’t get enough of the concrete look.  The products have really given the home the wow factor for us which is, of course, what we were hoping for.”

The ‘Aegis’ is located at the Pallara Display Village, and Oracle Platinum Homes have more new displays at North Harbour, Springfield Rise and Killara.

-- photography by Oracle Homes --