Living Shade put some sparkle into the Golden Mile with Ingenious

Super smart home consultancy Ingenious was called in to weave its magic into the ubercool Wai Cocos property in the middle of the so-called Golden Mile on the picturesque Noosa River, and they were dazzled by the expanse of glass.

A previous Ingenious client owned this riverfacing block and coincidently another previous client of Ingenious owned the block behind. The neighbour behind had no river view but he was a developer, so in a meeting of minds they decided to pool their assets and build three luxury apartments at the front and one duplex at the back and fill both blocks. As both of them had independently used Ingenious on previous projects, there was no argument about who to talk to about enhancing the building's value.

The result is a virtual jewel of a contemporary building that really does shine out from the clapperboard fascias of the older buildings on this delightful strip. The word shine is used deliberately as from the terraces you get a stunning sunrise over the river mouth, and in the evening you watch the sun sink into the languid waters of the river upstream.

"Our starting point was the home's expanse of glass," said Ingenious' Alan Lawson. "We obviously needed a blind strategy. Now many people don't take blinds seriously enough and that includes me. However, do you realise you can reduce heating and cooling costs by up to 65 per cent? Luckily, Ingenious started working with some very clever people from Sweden earlier this year called Svensson."

Svensson has evolved the most sophisticated technical textile-producing facility in the world. In summer, the aluminium in its space-age blinds will reduce internal temperatures by up to 12 degrees celcius and so reduce the cooling loads on your air conditioning (and wallet!), and then in winter help reduce heating costs by up to 41 per cent. These blinds are available in a range of colours and opacity to fulfill the desires of any design diva. Ingenious contracted local blind manufacturer House of Drapes to craft all the blinds.

Ingenious also designed a distributed audio/video system and home theatre system for each apartment that allows for flexibility and expandability, while giving the apartments' occupants the added feature of being able to relax on the balcony to enjoy the sunset and watch whatever is playing on the home theatre screen.

For the audio-video distribution, Ingenious installed the Speakercraft MZC66 which has a capability of six zones but only four zones are in use for phase one, with the two extra zones allowing for expansion in the future.

The only challenge in the home theatre was the screen size and the integration of the speakers in a non-intrusive way to match the clean lines of the living area. For the speakers, Alan Lawson chose Infinity. "I must confess I had these speakers in the study in my home in England and I like the look and sound," he said. "They have what the more didactic interior designers call an organic design. Ladies particularly tend to prefer this shape as well as the soft metallic sheen. Not only do they look and sound good, but also the stands give you an infinite variety of fixing options. Full marks to the engineers in matching form and function so well."

Of course, the building has smart lighting, a video intercom and full security system. Given the relationship with these clients, Ingenious was asked to supply some of the new large art selection (see the website). IDesign was commissioned for the Interior Design. Now the people at Ingenious, being super smart home designers, get to design systems for the upper decile of homes all over but Lawson maintains, "In terms of styling, the Wai Cocos has it. You could walk round it, squint, go crosseyed, do whatever you want but you won't find a single angle from which it looks even slightly wrong."