Sustainable Kitchen Design – Barkly Street

HIP V. HYPE is an example of an enterprise that values collaboration, and specialist knowledge. The company has opened a new studio, coined The Barkly Street Collective in Brunswick, which they have designed as a living laboratory to test and prototype material choices for projects, and share the space as a Work Share Hub drawing together professionals connected to creating better built environments.

“So the Barkly Street Collective is about us creating a space for ourselves, but it’s also for built environment professionals who are interested in working to create a more sustainable and resilient future. We become full-time desks available, month-to-month. And we also offer a ten day a month pass, which is really popular. The way we work is to say, who have we got in, what skills gaps exist, okay let’s see if we can find people with those skills to come take a desk? You have a bunch of different people from different backgrounds in the space at any one time. Odds are someone is able to answer the question.

The Collective is also sort of like a living laboratory. It’s an exploration of the kinds of materials and things that we’re looking to work within our projects more broadly. It gives us the opportunity to use the product that we’re putting into the spaces we’re creating for people. So, obviously for us – if you want to build sustainably, windows are critically important. And we’ve got an ongoing relationship with BINQ, who are a local timber window manufacturer that build high-performance timber windows. That’s where the collaboration with Cantilever comes in. I came across Cantilever through Green Magazine, ages ago and really liked what they were trying to do: sustainable materials, a more personal approach to production… their story just really resonated.

We’ve done multiple projects together, and building a kitchen for our new space offered us an opportunity to test some ideas with a new timber veneer we’re looking to use. And similarly, we’ve got V-ZUG appliances, they’re a Swiss company that have committed to being carbon neutral by 2020. That aligns really well with our values, it’s a high quality, beautifully resolved product, and it gives us the opportunity to use and better understand the product that we’re putting into the homes we’re creating for our customers.”