Graha Natura Surabaya – Celinda Show Unit

“Where life meets nature” – This is the slogan of the latest Intiland developer housing project in west Surabaya. Like most of the nowadays real estate project in Surabaya, Intiland use underground installation for the mechanical and electrical. But what makes it different is that Graha Natura is the pioneer in Surabaya for eco friendly and green design for housing real estate. They no longer use underground septic tank for each housing unit, but rather using a centralized septic tank, managed by the developer, so the house occupants don’t have to worry about septic tank maintainance in their house. Graha Natura also commited to design units that provide 40-50% of their land for greenery. In the corner of every housing cluster, we can see a small garden for herbs and Indonesia fruit trees. And every housing units design, Graha Natura only use 50-60% of the land for building, and the rest were used for garden. And make it possible to design houses that has excellent ventilation and light. Even for small types house around 200m2 has garden alongside the building, so the living, dining and the 1st floor master bedroom has access to natural light and air. I think it’s very important and really distinguished Graha Natura from most of other housing real estates in Surabaya which aim to maximize the land for buildings.

The Celinda show unit is located in Morning Glory cluster of Graha Natura, has beautiful small garden alongside, and quite a favourable unit in the market, as per today all of the units are sold. The great thing of designing a show unit is that the developer giving the designer freedom to design. So I decided to go with “Tropical Glam” concept, tropical – to adjust with Graha Natura main concept, and glam – referring to modern glamour style which I personally fond of.

In this show unit, I design the living, dining, pantry and Master Bedroom on the first floor, and have the access to design the ceiling, lighting, furniture, furnishing and interior styling. Most of the lighting fixtures, furnitures, and panels were custom made according to my team’s design.

(Here I also post several rendering pictures for the conceptual presentation and also the real pictures, so you can compare the concept and the real application. Which ones are better? The real  or the renderings? )- The real pictures are not taken professionally, so please forgive the lack of “artistic” photography touch…

For the public area consisting of living, dining, and pantry, I used a more rustic tone on wood grain furnitures, giving them open pore finish, and contrast it with white ducco gloss finish and mirrors for glam effect. I basicly like the contrast of dark and light together, because they accentuate each other in lovely way. In the pantry, I use Volacas marble as the top table. Contrasting its white surface with teak wood PU finished cabinet doors. . The aim is to give a clean and modern look while maintaining the natural feeling.

For the dining and living area, I added hints of blue in the furnishing. Actually I don’t really prefer colourful furniture. I like to keep the furniture in neutral tone, like black, white, cream, grey, brown, and adding colourful furnishings to spice it up, whether it’s on the patterned rugs, wall decor, decorative mirror, cushion or other accessories. So the same went for Celinda. I used blue as the accent colour for calming and natural effect on the cushions, dining ware, and vases.

Giving it a vintage edge, we used a custom white canvas hanging lamp for dining area, combined it with flower arrangement inside a birdcage right below the hanging lamp. The dining table itself is a combination of open pore teakwood extra doff PU finished with iron plate stand, giving it a more rustic touch. Custom made dining chairs with dark grey canvas like fabric finished, brass studded lining, and vintage door knocker attached on the back side of the chairs complete the whole dining area arrangement. In the real pictures, you can see we also attached traditional batik cloth and framed it as wall decor (This is simply one of my favourite detail).

Actually the interesting part of designing custom made furniture and interior styling is not limited only on the design process and the end result, but the story behind, making every project special. For example, while doing the production of the dining chairs, my designer team and I had to venture through antique and furniture accessories shops to find the perfect combination for the brass studded lining and the vintage door knocker. Making sure the details, placement, and the color of these elements complement each other and also the fabric in delightful way.

Adjacent to the dining area is the living room. The first thing you will notice in this area is the tree silhouette panel. A combination of white ducco gloss finished panel with mirror beneath the tree shape cutting area. We use a simple wooden block like TV cabinet with push to open drawers for seamless look and black painted iron pipe frame to support the cabinet. Having the tree silhouette next to windows overlooking the side garden, giving the impression that the living area is actually a continuation from the garden, and the dining table is the picnic table. The coffee table and rattan side table, still with open pore finish completing the whole design, giving it a natural – outdoor like ambience.

Heading to the master bedroom, I decided to give it a more glam look. More glossy surfaces and mirrors are applied in this room. White ducco gloss furniture accentuated the teakwood gloss one.  An arrangement of gray suede bedhead with studded details and teakwood gloss finished bedside tables giving it a vintage yet glam look. Bronze glass side lamp complimenting the whole arrangement of bed area. Details of green colour on the bed runner, cushions, flowers and accessories are applied to freshen up the room.

Aimed to give a more spacious feeling in the wardrobe area, all the sliding doors had mirrors with curve details on top and bottom of each door. A large mirror with hidden lamp details right above the lavatory giving the bathroom a more cozy and spacious ambience.

Hope this post give you brief insight about the original ideas and their development into the real deal. Enjoy!!