Travis Dean of Cantilever Interiors | Meet the Maker

Cantilever is a design-led Kitchen manufacturing company committed to building for longevity. A Cantilever Kitchen is designed to be tailor-made and hand-built by their team of skilled trades in their Brunswick Workshop. At the forefront of every project are company directors, Charlie Wilde and Travis Dean. Established in 2006 from a multi-disciplinary creative studio, furniture making merged with Kitchen design, their designer-maker model was born. Since then, they have finessed their practice and products, sharing their Kitchen Systems with many homes and projects across Australia. We took some time out with Travis to know more about him and their company. Let’s hear what he has to say..

George Takes Twelve

1. Pleasantries first… Tell us about who you are and what you do?
My name is Travis Dean, I am a Co-Director of Cantilever Interiors. I lead a diverse team specialized in design, documentation, production and installation, connecting our products to people and projects.

2. When I was growing up I wanted to be….
A park ranger. I grew up on the Mornington Peninsula so being outside and wandering through the bush was all I ever wanted to do.

3. What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
Just keep doing what you’re doing, can go either way!

4. What is your favourite way to get the creative juices flowing?
I get inspired by people and places. Each Cantilever project is different, so digging into the architecture and feel of a place, and the values and motivations of a client, is something I use to spur a design response. I’m attracted to our physical world, I take photos of details of objects all the time – manufactured or made – buildings or things – these lead to details in our products.

5. What does your average work day look like?
Early start, co-ordinating our team and responding to our works schedule. I usually have appointments new projects and clients through the middle of the day, and try to wrap up communications in the afternoon.

6. If you could invite any five celebrities to dinner, who’s dining?
I’m hoping they don’t have to be alive: David Bowie, Quentin Tarantino, Germaine Greer, Haruki Murakami, Damien Hirst, Frida Khalo, Bon Scott, Nick Kyrgios.

7. What was the last rule you broke?
No right turn between 7am and 9:30am.

8. What’s one thing people may not know about you?
I play tennis.

9. What was the last movie you saw and was it any good?
The Parasite by Bong Joon-Ho. It was good, the cinematography was amazing.

10. You’ve got a week off… where are you headed?
Camping riverside mountain forest.

11. What’s your favourite project/design so far and why?
That is so hard, a recent project would be Tableau, Kerferd Place. It’s satisfying working with a new product and seeing the thinking and testing translate into projects.

12. What’s next for you? Any exciting new projects in the pipeline…
We are never short on ideas at Cantilever! I think it’s the burden of working within a highly creative bunch! We are looking at our next product line, showroom and design collaborations. We also have a project featuring three Tableau Kitchens in a large co-working space in Sydney coming up, with DesignOffice which I’m looking forward too.