THE ARCHITECTURAL PROCESS |
| The second part of stage one is creating your Design Brief for your new home. When the site analysis has been carried out you will sit down with your architect and develop your design brief. The brief, along with the site review, is the fundamental building block from which your new home design will grow. Because of this it’s very important that you get your design brief just right. Anything that you forget to tell your architect, that you really need will not be in your finished home, or will be the cause of expensive re-design fees and may require re-building sections of your home to get it right. As you are creating your brief be aware that if something is not in the brief it won’t be in your new home. |
what is the DESIGN brief?Simply put, the design or project brief, also called a ‘program’, is a list of all your requirements that need to be included in your home. how to start on your design briefWhen you start to create your brief, before you go over your requirements with your architect, it’s best to sit down with all the people who will be living in your home and discuss everything that they need and want. Discuss ideas, go away and think about them, come back to the brief and refine it. Your brief will be a work in progress until you feel that you have recorded everything that you need and want and defined what is important in your home for all your family members. As a starting point you can think about houses that you know and like and consider what aspects of them appeal to you. Think about the home you are living in now – what works and what doesn’t, what’s great about it, what does it lack? Looking in magazines, collecting images and noting down ideas are great ways to help you to think outside the box. what to consider when creating your brief
what your architect will doWhen you work with your architect to create the brief together they will ask you a multitude of questions about your ideas, your needs, your lifestyle and they will hone in on tiny details to make sure that they fully understand your requirements. Typically after your first meeting to create the brief they will put together a draft brief for you to look over which may include items requiring clarification. The draft brief can go backwards and forwards several times to refine the brief. Your job is to go over their brief document and make sure that it perfectly defines everything that you need in your home. Don’t start designing... This is the stage for ideas. This early stage of creating your home design brief is a chance to have fun and explore ideas, because right now there are no limitations to your perfect home. Even big ideas that you think are impossible right now, but are things that you would love to have in your home, can be adapted by your architect into creative design solutions that will help your finished home to be absolutely perfect for you. |
 |  Director at Archetype Building Design Studios B. ARCHITECTURE, B.A. (Architecture), UTS Master of Dispute Resolution (Faculty of Law, UTS) Member of the Australian Mediators Association |
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THE ARCHITECTURAL PROCESS |
STAGE 1: PROJECT DEVELOPMENT & ANALYSISThe first stage of your architectural design is all about working out exactly what you need, what you want and what you actually can do with the design of your new home. At the end of this stage the parameters of what you can build will have been established and the viability of your building project will be assessed. There are two parts to this stage: 1. The Site Review and 2. Creating the Design Brief. Right now we’ll explore what is included in The Site Review. the site reviewUndertaking a detailed and thorough Site Review is fundamental to the overall success of the project. Missing information could result in a design that doesn’t function properly for you, doesn’t maximise the opportunities of the site or worse isn’t able to be built because of planning restrictions that weren’t considered. What your Architect will do to complete the Site Review: |
| Your Architect will need to visit your property in person and take photos and measurements of the site and any existing structures and look at the existing conditions of the site and the surroundings. |
| Your Architect will arrange for a survey of the site and surrounding buildings. He or she will prepare a Site Survey which will be presented as a map showing boundaries, topography, utilities on the site, the location and height of any existing buildings, the location and height of neighbouring buildings, fences and any existing other features of the site. The survey will also establish the legal boundaries, any covenants or rights-of-way or encroachments on the site. |
| They will conduct research on the zoning and planning restriction with local authorities and check if there are additional planning restrictions that apply to your property. Local councils' regulations and processes, Local Environmental Plans, Development Control Plans, State Planning Policies, environmental agencies' regulations, Building Codes, BASIX and environmental design requirements and Standards all have their own conditions and restrictions which need to be considered. |
| A site analysis will be completed that will collate all the information collected from the site visit, the survey and the research. This will present findings on access, circulation, topography, materials, views, prevailing winds, sun movement, overshadowing, climate conditions, surrounding building context, site and local land use, local environment effects, existing vegetation, electrical lines, surrounding roads. All of this research and the findings will be compiled in a Project Review Report that will summarise the limitations on building on your site, regulations that affect your property, the planning application process and any issues that will impact on your home design. CONSULTANTS NEEDED FOR STAGE ONE
WHAT YOU NEED TO DO FOR STAGE ONEYou will need to supply any existing property information that you have, such as existing site and building plans and surveys, land information, consultant reports, building reports etc. You will need to obtain a sewer and water diagram from the water authority in your area. You will need to engage the Surveyor and in for some sites you will also need to contract a Geotechnical Engineer – your architect or designer will help you with these. The second part of Stage One is creating the Design Brief, which you can read about in the next entry. |
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Director at Archetype Building Design Studios B. ARCHITECTURE, B.A. (Architecture), UTS. Master of Dispute Resolution (Faculty of Law, UTS) Member of the Australian Mediators Association |
| If you have any questions about the Architectural Design Process or would like to work with us on your new home, please contact us here: |
Our goal that we have set for ourselves in architecture and design, is to create the perfect home for our clients, we want you to have a very specifically designed home that’s exactly perfect for you, and that’s a pretty high goal, but I think that we have found the keys to being able to produce that level of success for our clients and our policy of providing unlimited 3D drawings is one of them.
The thing about 2 dimensional plans, elevations and sections is that most people who aren’t trained in architecture find them confusing. And the 2 dimensional drawings don’t actually convey what the home or the space will feel like in reality – how it will be to live in and to move through. This is why we create so many 3D drawings of your home during the design stages – we’ll create as many as you need (literally an unlimited number of drawings) - so that we can be completely confident that you understand the design of your home and that you are perfectly happy with all the design decisions that you are making.
We are giving you so much more information about the design with the 3 dimensional drawings that we find that it creates an enormous number of questions about how the design works. And these are questions on a whole new level. Instead of trying to understand what the drawings are conveying, which is what happens when presented with only 2 dimensional drawings, our clients have an immediate understanding of what they will be getting in their home and that prompts them to explore the design on a whole new level. And this ties in with our desire to have as complete an understanding of the project as possible. More questions equal more information – from both the designer and the clients.
From this increase in input and understanding from our clients we can build up a very deep understanding of exactly what you need in your home and you also have a very clear understanding of what your home will be like. You can pass from the position of client and become a collaborator in your home design. And that’s exactly what we want to happen. That’s the only way for your new home to be perfect for you.
Where most firms will show maybe one or two 3d drawings, if any at all, our goal is to give you as many 3 dimensional drawings as you want. We will provide you with an unlimited number of 3 dimensional drawings. And that’s what it is – unlimited – we want you to have as many as you need to understand your project, and I don’t think any other architects or designers offer that service.
From this increase in input and understanding from our clients we can build up a very deep understanding of exactly what you need in your home and you also have a very clear understanding of what your home will be like. You can pass from the position of client and become a collaborator in your home design. And that’s exactly what we want to happen. That’s the only way for your new home to be perfect for you.
Where most firms will show maybe one or two 3d drawings, if any at all, our goal is to give you as many 3 dimensional drawings as you want. We will provide you with an unlimited number of 3 dimensional drawings. And that’s what it is – unlimited – we want you to have as many as you need to understand your project, and I don’t think any other architects or designers offer that service.
ARCHETYPE BUILDING DESIGN STUDIOS have released the new Architecture Process Guide. Designing and building any project is probably the largest investment anyone ever makes, however, few if any of the people undertaking extensive building and renovation projects have any experience with the process. That's why we created the Architecture Process Guide. The Guide is available to read or download from our site. Click here for a copy.
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Director at Archetype Building Design Studios
B. ARCHITECTURE, B.A. (Architecture), UTS. Master of Dispute Resolution (Faculty of Law, UTS) Member of the Australian Mediators Association |
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