Define Before Design: Why good projects start before the drawing begins

Aug 1

5 min read

Updated: Oct 2

When you're planning a renovation or new home, it's tempting to start with the design.

You probably already have ideas about how the house might look, rooms you'd like to add and a collection of images showing the style you're after.

But before asking “What should we design?”, there are some more important questions to answer:

What are we trying to achieve?

What do we actually need?

What can the property accommodate?

What can we realistically afford?

We call this Define Before Design.

It means establishing the project parameters and ensuring you have a viable project before investing significant time and money designing it.

Start with the project goal

A good project starts with a simple, realistic goal.

For example:

“We need to accommodate our growing family with a second living area and separate bedrooms for our three children.”

This is much more useful than starting with:

“We want to add 100m² to the house.” or “We want to raise & build in under our house.”

The first describes the outcome.

The second assumes a solution before the problem has been properly considered.

That distinction matters because there may be a way of achieving the family's goal with 60m² of additional construction—or perhaps by making better use of some of the house they already have.

Needs, Wants and Priorities

Most homeowners come to a project with a mixture of Needs and Wants.

The Needs are the things the project must achieve to be worthwhile.

The Wants are things you'd like to achieve if the site and budget allow.

A useful test is:

“If we couldn't achieve this, would we still proceed with the project?”

If the answer is no, it's probably a Need.

If the answer is yes, it's probably a Want.

Then prioritise the Wants.

This becomes extremely useful when decisions have to be made later. Rather than randomly removing things to meet the budget, you can keep returning to the original project goal and priorities.

Understand the property

Before developing a design, you also need to understand what you're working with.

For a renovation, that means understanding the existing house as well as the land.

Planning controls, character requirements, setbacks, existing structures, orientation, levels, services, access and other site constraints can all influence what is practical.

Sometimes what initially looks straightforward can be significantly influenced by a planning, structural or site constraint.

Finding that out before investing heavily in design is much better than discovering it afterwards.

Establish the real project budget

One of the most common problems at the beginning of a residential project is confusing the construction budget with the project budget.

They're not the same thing.

Your total project budget may need to cover:

construction + consultants + approvals + investigations + contingency + other project costs + GST.

If you have $600,000 available for the entire project, you don't necessarily have $600,000 available to give to the builder.

Establishing this distinction early gives the design process a realistic financial framework.

It's also important to identify any significant timing requirements. Planning approvals, consultant input, documentation and construction all take time, and an unrealistic timeframe can be just as problematic as an unrealistic budget.

Set a target of what you'd like to spend plus a hard maximum.

Test the brief

Once we understand the goal, priorities, property and budget, we can start testing whether they work together.

We look at three fundamental questions.

1. Can it fit?

Can the required spaces physically fit within the available building envelope while providing a good outcome?

This doesn't require resolving the architecture. At this stage, preliminary spatial studies can establish the approximate area required and whether that area can reasonably be accommodated on the site.

2. Can you afford it?

Once we understand approximately how much work may be required, we can test that against realistic construction cost allowances.

If the amount of building required to satisfy the brief is fundamentally inconsistent with the budget, that's something we want to know before developing the design.

3. Is it good value?

Just because you can spend your entire budget doesn't mean you necessarily should.

Could the main project goal be achieved with less construction?

Could an existing room be repurposed instead of adding another?

Could we build out rather than up?

Could a more efficient plan eliminate 15 or 20 square metres of construction without compromising the spaces that matter?

This is where defining the problem before designing the solution can start saving real money.

Make the hard decisions when they're inexpensive

There is a simple principle behind the whole process:

The earlier you make a decision, the less it generally costs to change it.

Changing a requirement in a brief costs very little.

Changing a line on a preliminary plan costs a little more.

Changing completed architectural and engineering documentation costs considerably more.

Changing something after approvals, pricing or construction have commenced can be very expensive.

That's why we would rather identify a conflict between your ambitions and your budget at the beginning than discover it after months of design work.

If the initial brief doesn't stack up, we can reconsider it.

We might reduce lower-priority Wants, find efficiencies in the space required, investigate a different approach to the existing house, reconsider the level of finishes or review the budget.

Those aren't design failures.

They're informed decisions made at the right time.

Then we design

Define Before Design doesn't mean avoiding design.

Quite the opposite.

It gives the creative design process a much stronger starting point.

Instead of asking an architect to start drawing with an open-ended wish list and an uncertain budget, we begin with a clearly defined project:

a realistic goal + an understanding of the property + a prioritised brief + an established budget.

The design process can then concentrate on finding the best solution within those parameters.

And because the project has already been tested at a preliminary level, you can move into design with much greater confidence that what you're designing has a realistic prospect of being built.

Define Before Design - Our Project Definition process

Commercial property projects rarely begin with someone simply drawing a building.

Before significant design work starts, the project is investigated, requirements are established, constraints are identified, budgets are tested and a project brief is prepared.

We believe homeowners making a significant investment in their property deserve the same discipline.

That's why our architectural process starts with Project Definition.

We research the property, establish your project goals and priorities, develop the preliminary brief, investigate the likely scope of work and test it against your budget.

Only when we understand what the project needs to achieve and whether it's realistic do we move into the creative design phase.

Define first. Design second.