Each evening:

-Evening scene 1: Triggered one hour before sunset and turns selected common areas and all exterior lights on. Furthermore, it closes the master bedroom and sitting room curtains to ensure privacy.

Evening scene 2: All lighting circuits are slowly shut off so that only the landscape lights remain on during the night.

Each morning:

Morning scene 1: At sunrise, a scene turns off any remaining external lighting and step lights. The blinds on the eastern side are closed to reduce the harsh glare that reflects on the water.

Morning scene 2: Three hours after dawn breaks, the motorised blinds (Facing the waterfront) are raised to let sunlight flood the area without the harsh glare of early morning sunlight.

All of these scenes can be ‘enabled’ or ‘disabled’ accordingly by the end user.

Entertain Scene: The clients love to entertain, and so with the press of a button, can have 3 floors of stunning lighting on to highlight the features of this amazing home. This scene really sets the mood and provides an efficient way to turn on all the relevant lighting, as well as turn off all bedrooms and unwanted areas they may be on.

Goodnight: This is one of our favourite scenes to include and put together to aid in the painful process of turning all the lights off before residing to bed. We have all been there before…. you walk around the house turning each light off, one by one as you make your way to the bed, then avoid kicking your toe on the bed at the last second before jumping in. Well not anymore! The goodnight scene slowly and strategically ramps off all lighting, yet leaving a dull pathway all the way to bed for a short period of time, where it then shuts off all lights to give you complete darkness with ample time to get into bed.

Pool Control & Filtration:

We controlled the filtration pumps and chlorinator as well as an ‘Air Switch’ via a Dynalite IO sense module. We installed a custom stainless press button in the feature timber deck surrounding the spa, where by, when pressed turns on a Dynalite channel at the Pool equipment area to trigger the spa blower. This added feature enabled our clients to operate the spa without having to get out. In order to keep the pool from further maintenance, Dynalite is programmed to control the heater, and run at the correct operating times during the summer and winter seasons. This scheduling makes it easy to operate, but also manually enable from a switch/tablet if needed without heading outdoors to the pool plant area.

Motorised Louvers for air circulation:

Proper air circulation is an essential factor that is sometimes disregarded. It not only keeps your home smelling fresh, but it also helps to regulate temperature, remove contaminants, and prevent mould. Using this information, we have setup schedules to trigger both ‘open’ and ‘close’ scenes each day to provide the perfect flow of air circulation throughout the home.  This circulation helps maintain an even distribution of heat or cool air throughout the home, ensuring a comfortable environment year-round.

Wi-Fi Coverage:

The current lifestyle places a high emphasis on networks and wireless connections; therefore, Wi-Fi coverage was always going to be difficult in a home, primarily constructed of steel, concrete & glass.  Wireless signals are degraded as they attempt to pass through dense materials, so we had to ensure an even coverage of AP’s were strategically installed throughout the home to provide our clients with reliable connections for both home and work environments. To assist in this process, we were able to utilize Araknis’s heat map software to best position AP’s and provide an extensive report for the results. Once the report has been generated and system deployed, we added the power of OvrC, a cloud based remote management platform that enables us to configure, manage and troubleshoot devices on the network. This feature provided our clients with peace of mind and factual evidence that the wireless network in their home was a great return for investment and all relevant planning was completed prior top execution.

Construction & Building materials:

Not everything was smooth sailing, as it was clear from the start that there would be some challenges and limitations to product performance. Off Form concrete ceilings, large amounts of steel reinforcement, polished concrete floors, timber cladding/paneling, massive amounts of glass were all aspects of the home we had to take into consideration when piecing together the design. We also had the vision of the architect to take onboard, as he had done such an amazing job to design a home with all of these materials and clean lines, therefore aesthetics was a huge contribution to final decisions.

Architect:

Justin Humphrey was the architect who had the original vision of this sleek, contemporary home using raw materials and pushing the limits of form and factor to create such a home. Knowing this prior to our initial meeting, we knew that going into this project, design and aesthetics was going to play a major part in the decisions and outcome of the design intent. We worked with Justin and the clients to offer a few options for all selections prior to the final decision in each case. These 3 layered approaches, provided the magnificent, finished product we have come to know as ‘The Corso’

1: Audio Quality

Audio quality was high priority to our clients, however, so was aesthetics. This home was constructed of concrete/timber ceilings and majority concrete floors. wrapped in glass. Not ideal for audio. With minimal walls and next to zero ceiling cavity, we had to think outside the box when it came to audio and required depths of traditional speakers. These hurdles, lead us to explore the possibilities of gyprock finish (invisible) speakers. We teamed up with the guys at Amber Technology to utilize Sonance’s ‘Invisible’ series speakers. After a demo and some back and forth with the architect/builder and client, we were able to design a solution that would provide our client with the audio quality they were after, as well as keep a sleek contemporary design by installing a few pairs of Sonances Invisible speakers in the walls of the lounge area. To compliment this space, we worked with the steel fixers and concreters onsite throughout the construction period to install custom 8″ 140mm deep speaker block outs, which allowed us to install a full bodied 8-ohm speaker solution in both the kitchen and Alfresco areas. The traditional style in-ceiling speakers provided the additional low-end audio that we were after to compliment the invisibles. To provide the power required to drive these, we paired them, triad Class D amplifiers to give them the power they deserve.

2: Overall Security

Our clients were very mindful that the Gold Coast is experiencing an increase in crime and therefore a security alarm and CCTV system were paramount to assist in reducing crime and opportunity.  We designed both the CCTV and intruder alarm systems to tie into the Control4 platform, along with access-controlled doors to provide a proactive multi-layered approach for their safety. Control4’s intuitive APP allows them to not only monitor but secure the home from anywhere in the world. This feature was a huge selling point for the project and one that provided them with peace of mind, yet again.