A wonderful advantage of undertaking the design and build of your own home is that it can be specifically tailored to the people that will live there. Unlike developer-driven projects, this process is not a marketing exercise, there is no imagined family or need to conform to perceived real estate tick boxes. We find that families who have the vision to create their own homes are doing so for the foreseeable future; they are making a long-term commitment and are not so easily swayed by current market considerations.

To create a long-term family home, it is useful to consider both the family ‘unit’ and each of the individuals in the family. We acknowledge that just as each family often has their own collective character – as well as shared values – each member of a family inevitably also has their own unique personality traits, activities and interactions. The needs and dreams of each individual within will inevitably change and evolve over time, rendering the family unit malleable, too.

When considering the family as a collective of individuals, it can be helpful to think of the home as a village, with regular and spontaneous daily rhythms. At moments the village transforms into a high energy state, crammed with bustling festivals, parties and town hall meetings in which everyone comes together. And sometimes, the dwellers retreat to seclusion in individual rooms, nooks or courtyards.

While the general requirements of eating, living and sleeping tend to remain constant across all homes, the specific arrangements of these components may be as unique as the people that live there. Such individual details need to be considered temporally, not only short-term, but also in the long term – because just as we change over time, so too must our houses. A well-designed home will anticipate this kind of movement and smoothly adapt in tandem with its residing family. When designing a home people often, understandably, are focused on their immediate needs, perhaps considering only the next five years. It can be beneficial to also anticipate how needs may fluctuate beyond that. For example, as a primary school child becomes a teenager, how might a home enable them to express their own identity? Or what if the owners are contemplating a future in which they may be working less, or spending more time at home, or more time away? Perhaps a home could even be reconfigured to provide separate accommodation for university aged children or for financial assistance. By carefully forecasting and addressing a range of situations, the design of a home can address the evolving spatial needs of a family over short and long periods of time.

For a habitat to feel secure and meet deep-seated psychological needs, inhabitants require both prospect and refuge – that is, the capacity to observe, without being seen. However, a home can also be a performative space; it can paradoxically function as both a shelter and stage. As a shelter, these inner sanctums are places of refuge and security. As a stage, they are platforms by which one experiences the world and expresses the self. City homes are sites of both vulnerable authenticity and constructed identity formation; they are the face, as well as the mask. A house is an intensely personal space and it is precisely for this reason we invite people over to share our homes. By doing so, we strengthen a connection and share our lives with others, in a way that can be at once authentic and constructed. Sometimes, we may even develop an emotional connection with the house itself. As researcher Lily Bernheimer posits:

“Our emotional attachment to our homes can be almost as strong as our emotional attachment to other people. Home environments are key in defining who we are, so much so that we almost feel they are part of us.”

Understanding domestic spaces in this complex and nuanced way informs the creation of ‘listening’ homes that speak directly and with flair to their inhabitants.

Designing a new home in the city is typically one of three types of projects: a knock down and rebuild (KDR), an alteration or addition to an existing house (alts/adds) or the renovation of a house (reno).

All of the above approaches have their time and place. For example, in the case of an existing property that is in poor condition, of little architectural merit, or poorly located on the site, then a KDR may be the best approach. Alternatively, when a property is subject to a heritage overlay (which is a type of planning control and planning permit trigger), in relatively solid condition and architecturally of note, an Alts/Adds project may be the only, and best, option available.

Sometimes the optimal approach (whether KDR, Alts/Adds or Reno) is not so obvious, and in these kinds of circumstances it may be advisable to seek preliminary professional advice to make an informed decision. An architect can provide high-level thinking design concepts for all possible approaches alongside a discussion of the relative merits of each.

Your budget is as significant part of your project as any other single component. The cost of construction needs to be estimated and updated as the design develops. To manage expectations for the project, it is important to be realistic and conservative when devising the budget right from the beginning. Continually having to increase the budget, or needing to significantly change the drawings at the end of the design process, when ready to build, can cause unnecessary stress and tension. It is therefore important that the architect and client together carefully manage this financial aspect, rather than to shy away from it or hope for the best. Regular checks and balances should be in place while the project unfolds to ensure that those realistic expectations which were established at the beginning are consistently met.

Near the start of the project architects can provide an estimate range for the building’s construction costs. This estimate is based on square meter rates that are determined by current market conditions as well as experience from similar projects. Early in the design process, it is also recommended that a professional cost consultant or quantity surveyor be engaged. Such experts are qualified to calculated detailed cost estimates based on the design, with allowance for contingences.

Often, clients are not sure what they can reasonably expect to pay for the home they are envisioning. This interaction between the budget and the brief can be worked through in the initial architectural design stages to ensure that expectations of cost are reasonably aligned with expectations for what can be built.

Architects fees are generally calculated as a percentage of the project’s estimated construction cost. To enable the estimation these figures, it is sometimes necessary to work through the initial phases of a project via development of the brief and possible options in response to the site.

The actual percentage amount an architect charges is generally related to the complexity of a project. An addition to a Victorian terrace house in a heritage overlay, for example, is more complex and takes longer to resolve than a new house on flat farmland. Whereas our fees for larger new homes that do not require a planning permit are 10-12%, smaller projects involving additions to an existing home would be charged at around 14-16%.

Just as each site and client is unique, so too should be the architectural response. Three key site-based drivers that influence our designs from the outset include orientation, privacy and connection to the outdoors. In addition to a unique physical character, every site also comes with prescribed definitions of what might be possible in the form of planning code overlays, which limit elements such as site coverage, garden area and window placement.

In some cases, a town planning permit, issued by the local council planning department, may be triggered by council-determined site area limitations, heritage overlays, vegetation protection controls, and the like. For the majority of city homes, it is increasingly difficult to locate sites that will not require a town planning permit.

For almost all projects, a building permit, issued by a building surveyor engaged directly by the client, is also necessary. As the Victorian Building Authority explains, a building permit certifies that a proposed building complies with the relevant construction regulations. It legally allows the building work to be undertaken according to its approved plans, specifications and documentation.

Although planning and building permits can add a substantial time and work to the design timeline, they help ensure that all projects are safe and sensitive to people and context. It is critical to investigate the specific requirements for each site so that the relevant permits and approvals are applied for and reviewed in a timely manner.

Passive design is an approach that responds to the local micro-climate of a place to maintain a comfortable temperature within a building. When well-executed, passive design should reduce the need for active heating or cooling systems, such as air-conditioning and electronic heaters.

To establish strong passive design, letting lovely northern (or northeast) light into the home interior is paramount. Such light can be manipulated so that it penetrates the interior during winter but is blocked from entering directly during summer. This controlled interaction of light and shadow also works to animate the interior atmosphere of a space.

The passive design principle of harnessing northern or northeast light can be coupled with a strategic adoption of thermal mass. This ensures that warmth can be absorbed by the house during the day and then released at night, reducing the need for active heating systems on cold nights. Conversely, similar tactics will aid with keeping internal temperatures cool and stable in summer. Appropriate thermal mass manifests in materials such as concrete, bricks and tiles and can be located on either the floor or walls of a house.

The intention of sustainable architecture is to reduce carbon emissions and negative ecological consequences of building through sensitive design. Often, this involves drawing on passive design techniques, renewable power options, connection to landscape, and robust or recycled materials to impact the environment minimally.

Passive design principles, combined with the smart, minimal selection of active heating and cooling systems, can significantly improve a house’s carbon footprint and lower energy costs over the long term. Utilising heat pump technologies to fuel hydronic heating and domestic hot water can reduce the amount of electricity that is depleted in comparison to conventional systems. Through the integration of such components with an induction cooktop, and more importantly also with a PV panel system, we ensure that our homes are powered entirely by renewable energy sources; with electricity only, not with non-renewable gas. In this way, we are also future proofing homes as gas supply will be phased out in the not too distant future.

As for active cooling, in Victoria, amongst architects and Environmentally Sustainable Design (ESD) consultants it is widely acknowledged that the adoption of ceiling fans – in tandem with good passive design – is in most cases sufficient for keeping a house cool in summer. Ceiling fans are the cheapest and most energy efficient active cooling option.

Sustainability is an integral part of the architectural design process and not something to be applied later as a band-aid. Passive and active decisions about solar orientation, location of thermal mass, insulation, window size and placement, heating and cooling systems as well as materiality are all essential parts to the design and each of those parts is critical to the creation of a sustainable home.