CSR have worked closely with leading Australian design studio Nexus Designs to identify six home designs and nine exterior material colour palettes that hero the beauty, strength and design flexibility of our products and how they can be used on popular and emerging home styles.
We believe that the choices you make for the exterior of your home set the tone for your interior. These decisions will influence the way you and your family live and how your home will last well into the future.
This process in developing the CSR Style Guide is a collaborative one between Nexus Designs and the CSR team. Created over many months, and incorporating all pillars of the CSR business, it is inspired by global and local trends, adapted to suit the Australian way of life, home designs and our environment.
About Nexus Designs
The CSR Style Guide has been compiled with leading Australian design studio Nexus Designs, which has created enduring and personal design for more than 50 years. Multi-disciplinary, the studio offers an integrated service of interior design, product development, colour and trend analysis, graphic design and communication within the residential, commercial, government, education and building product manufacturing sectors.
Nexus Designs has worked with CSR to analyse and identify Australian design trends to help them fine-tune their product offerings and understand the emerging material colour palettes favoured by the industry.
CSR Home Designs
"Thinking about how you live in your home is the best starting point when building and renovating, says Sonia Simpfendorfer, Director | Interior Design, of Nexus Designs. She suggests starting with what has prompted the building journey.
“Ask how do you and your family live, what are your patterns, the areas of the home you spend most time in?” she says. “It’s also really important to consider where your home is situated – what direction does it face, what is the surrounding landscape? Do you live in an urban, rural or coastal location? All of these things will affect the home design and layout, as well as the colours and materials used to build it.”
Sally Evans, Director | Product Development at Nexus Designs, adds that homes in Australia are evolving and that they are even more hard-working spaces than before.
“Changing family dynamics, working from home patterns and sustainability considerations such as energy efficiency and longevity are top of mind,” she says.
“The CSR Style Guide addresses these changes through the formation of a practical as well as inspirational toolkit. Accurate future trends in home design, specifiable material colour palettes and practical information on performance and efficiency products give customers, builders and designers tangible advice on how to build appropriate, beautiful and long-lasting homes for our Australian climate and lifestyle.
“The home designs and material colour palettes presented in the CSR Style Guide represent a comprehensive and future-thinking toolkit of architectural form, colour, materiality and advice that will inform the future of our Australian residential built landscape,” she says.
Emerging Trends
Sonia Simpfendorfer says that access to nature and the outdoors is key to the Australian lifestyle, and sees this reflected in an increased focus in the architecture, design and media spheres.
“As a result, home design is maximising indoor/outdoor spaces, verandahs and balconies, courtyard gardens and a greater incorporation of greenspace into home design and landscaping,” she says. “The simplified and grounded characteristics of Modernist, Japanese and Scandinavian architecture are being represented in home design trends, each being suitable to the Australian climate, colours and landscapes in their own way.”
Home Designs
CSR home designs include Contemporary, a clean and impressive style, now often softened with curves; and Barnhouse, a dramatic and minimalist style, often with a symmetrical gable roofline and long open spaces. We also have identified the Classic style, which is a relaxed and welcoming design. The new Modernist style is refined and grounded and can have a flat or pitched roofline with connected interior spaces to make it highly liveable, while Industrial is focused on raw materials and warehouse-style facades and interiors. The last style is Coastal, reflecting Australians’ love of the beach and a bright and airy lifestyle, featuring varying rooflines and cladding in mixed materials, combined with plenty of natural light.
Colour Palettes
New material colour palettes overlay these home designs as part of the CSR Style Guide, including Easy Neutrals, a soft and warm style with textural touches. Homeowners could also embrace the next iteration of grey, with the new Warm Greys palette, which moves away from stark cooler greys to warming and calming alternatives.
The Bright Whites style takes this ever-popular palette to a new level by adding textural elements such as bagged renders, while Fresh Greys offers a new take on these shades using a light palette as well as weatherboards and linear detailing. Pure Naturals features natural materials and curvaceous shapes, while Soft Earth includes a more robust aesthetic and warmer palette that echo raw materials.
The Rich Browns palette layers browns with undertones of rich mauve along with hints of green and balanced by green grey. Strong Darks is a more complex style, encompassing texture, but with a warmer palette of charcoals and greys than previous years. It also is a softer alternative to Bold Blacks, still a much-loved monochromatic aesthetic, featuring a graphic and sleek style that is both timeless and modern.
CSR Exterior Material Colour Palettes
