Peter Dalton Architects, through the principal’s social planning skills, research and experience, has developed the expertise to help our clients develop realistic project briefs and budgets.

It is one of the firm’s principles that we try to ensure our clients get the brief and the budget right so that we can get the design right.
Architectural Showcase - Multi-unit / retirement housing-Overview
Architectural showcase – Private residential – Overview

The details of the brief will vary with the type of building you propose to build. However there are elements common to all briefs. These are:

	Clearly define who is going to use the building
	Define the user’s lifestyle needs
	If building units, townhouses or villas which are to be sold or rented, it is critical to define the market expectations of the buyers
	The financial criteria for the project need to be clearly defined
	Preparing a realistic project budget
	All briefs are about rooms, spaces and sizes
	Specifying special functional requirements goes hand in hand with the room schedule
	Analysing the advantages and restraints of the site and environment
	Balancing expectations against budget

Clearly define who is going to use the building BACK
If you are proposing to build housing this can be for a family with children at varying ages, a single individual, a couple without children, retirees, welfare clients, people holidaying, and many others. They may be owners, renters, leasees, short term visitors.

Define the user’s lifestyle needs BACK
Housing provides the setting for much of life. One might say from the cradle to the grave.
It is the stage set of life’s pleasures and dramas played out in the intimacy of the family life, even if that is only a single person surrounded by the mementos and collections of a lifetime and their friends and pets.

The home is both an intimate world and a social arena of family and visitors, which is set amongst other homes, whether in a suburb or a high rise apartment, where neighbours are part of the social setting.

If building units, townhouses or villas which are to be sold or rented, it is critical to define the market expectations of the buyers BACK
This may require input from real estate agents and market researchers to ensure the marketplace is correctly defined and described.

It is critical to determine how the housing product can be designed and presented to maximise the rate of sale to ensure the fastest return on investment.

The competition needs to be inspected and evaluated so that we can see how we can improve on competitive products on offer.

The financial criteria for the project need to be clearly defined BACK
Housing is real estate, and the real estate value is an important part of the financial criteria that define the project budget.

Whether you are building your dream house or investing to maximise return on capital it is essential that the financial criteria (the budget as well as the return) be clearly set out so that the design and management of the project can respond to these criteria.It may be necessary to engage the building cost consultant to clarify these aspects of the brief to ensure that there is no misunderstanding of your expectations.

Preparing a realistic project budget BACK
This is one of the most important inputs clients can make to their project.
The House Design Budgeting Tool is a starting point. By working through the choices required and seeing their impact on the bottom line, you can see the financial consequences of your expectations and preferences become obvious.
Peter Dalton Architects House Design Budgeting Tool

We assist our clients to balance expectations and budget as part of the process of preparing the brief.

All briefs are about rooms, spaces and sizes BACK
Preparing a list of rooms and spaces with a description of their use, furnishing requirements, and preferred dimensions is a necessity.

Specifying special functional requirements goes hand in hand with the room schedule BACK
Often special requirements have to be satisfied such as designing for use by disabled residents, reducing long term maintenance, management and operating cost, protecting against risks from bushfires, etc.

It is essential to establish up front these special requirements, and to set appropriate and realistic performance criteria for evaluating the design. These criteria may be: comply with AS 1428 Design for access and mobility, comply with AS 3959 Construction of buildings in bushfire-prone areas, etc.

Analysing the advantages and restraints of the site and environment BACK
No brief can be set in isolation. The site is the canvas on which the building is painted and it has certain advantages and restraints which must be documented.

The architect and, if necessary, specialist consultants may need to inspect and assess the site to provide this analysis.

To assist us in this analysis we need a copy of the Section 149 Certificate obtainable from Council which sets out all the planning controls that apply to the site. We also need a copy of the deed plans and the deed descriptions of any easements or covenants which apply to the property.

Balancing expectations against budget BACK
This is often the biggest challenge in preparing a brief as expectations often exceed capacity or willingness to pay.

In conjunction with the building cost consultant, we assist our clients to make a realistic balance of expectations and budget.

The balancing process will continue during preparation of the design and development application as the consequences of various design choices become evident