How to get the Best Australian House Plans Designs

There are many Australian house plans and designs options when you decide to build your dream home. Careful consideration is required to maintain balance between:

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Each item on the list is important in its own right, and we need to keep a focus on the desired result

The key is to balance these seven key Australian house plans designs factors, so you can end up with a reasonable best..

Understanding How the Australian House Design Process Works

There are a number of ways new home buyers have traditionally selected their house plans designs and then gone on to build their home..

Project Builders – Project Builders are Home Builders that build a set-range of House Plans Designs. They usually allow a limited number of design modifications. Despite the widespread perception that Project Home Builders design and build the vast majority of homes in Australia; Project Home Builders have a significantly smaller market share than is commonly believed. If we define a project builder narrowly as a builder that builds a limited range of house designs. The perception probably arose due to the many Builders who are assumed to be Project Home Builders merely because they have display homes. This is likely not the case at all.

Design Builders – Design Builders will design and build a home to your specifications, sometimes using and modifying a design they have previously used or built. Design Builders are more numerous than Project Home Builders, who more often than not start out as Design Builders, who along the way, have accumulated a few ‘Standard House Plans Designs’

Contract Builders – Contract Builders simply contract to build YOUR home design that you have created using an independent process. Contract Builders will sometimes offer House Design Advice, primarily for technical reasons.

House Designers – House Designers are professionals that will design a home for a fee. House designers will always work from a brief that you provide. Everything depends on these instructions, and a poorly thought out brief will generally result in a poor home design and/or frustration and wasted money and effort.

Self-designed or Owner Designed Homes. This process is more common than is generally thought. Usually an Owner Designed Home will come to fruition with the help of one or more of the previous methods: A Project Home Builder may be able to modify one of his standard designs to resemble the owner design, a Design Builder could flesh out the meat on a bare-bones owner supplied sketch, or a Contract Builder could engage an affiliated House Designer to give form to a Self-Designed or Owner‘s Designed Home.
In each of the previous scenarios, the end result depends entirely on the clarity with which the Owners were able to convey their desires to those that ultimately gave technical form to their dreams.

A vital step occurs when the brief is given, and a wish-list prepared; because everything ultimately revolves around the options that will eventuate from these notes. If you later realise that you inadvertently provided incorrect instructions or information; don’t hesitate to correct it; because mindlessly toddling along the wrong path is a waste of your and everybody else’s time.

What Happens With the House Design Brief?

The short answer to this question is; “it depends who you give it to”.

If you approach a Project Home Builder, they will use one of their standard designs, modify it until they believe it resembles what you are looking for, however remotely, and then present that as a proposal to you for consideration. Often people accept this outcome it creates fewer waves, and they believe it costs less . . . perhaps no

If you give it to a Design Builder, they will provide you with a very rough estimate of the costs involved in building the home. If this figure is somewhere in your budget ballpark, they will need a preliminary deposit to do working drawings so that they can prepare a proper proposal. It is a good process if you are entirely certain what you want; because you will pay for the work whether you use it or not.

If you don’t know precisely what it is you want, you probably will not want what results that eventuate from an imprecise brief. Another drawback is that you may be entirely pleased by the design outcome, but not so pleased about the cost to build provided by the Design Builder.

This is not a pleasant outcome, because you will quickly realize that the design is not portable, and you might have to start the entire process again with a different Builder. If you give it to a Contract Builder, he will ask for more details, perhaps arrange for you to meet with a Building Designer, so that they can provide a proper proposal.

If you proceed along this path; ensure your designer has some inkling of current building costs or you may end being the proud owner of a design you cannot afford to build.

The Building Designer will draw what he believes you are asking for. Usually they will do a preliminary sketch initially, so you can obtain estimate cost, before he finalizes the design. They normally charge a set fee to do this work, plus variation costs for an excessive number of modifications to the basic sketchVery little comes at no costs whatsoever, but what if you are unclear about your desired result, or know precisely what you are looking for? This is not as uncommon or absurd as it may sound.

Not everyone is dead certain about what they want, and often it is the case that a couple could have conflicting ideas and preferences.That is why I recommend that regardless of the eventual option selected, you at least start with a Self-Design.

When you try to put things on paper, it clarifies your thoughts, exposes embedded conflicting ideas, and gives some shape to abstract concepts. Below is a brief outline about how you go about doing this:

First make a wish-list. This is easier to do than you may imagine. Simply make a list of everything you can think of that you maybe … possibly … could possibly… want in your home. Don’t be shy or embarrassed about it. Pretty soon fantasy will collide with reality and you will rationalize the list. Until then … fantasize!!!
Then roughly figure out the space you require. How many bedrooms … living area … outdoor areas … storage, etc.
Figure out where North is … if possible; orientate living areas and outdoor areas so that they take full advantage of north-East and South-East breezes. Try to ensure that the living areas are not affected by direct summer sunlight.
Do what can be called a ‘spider-sketch’. So-called because they often look like a drunk spider wandered through a pot of ink and onto the page. There is no need to overly precise about the scale, or the sizes of rooms.
Use whatever resources you can find for ideas; copying an arrangement of rooms, in whole or in part, is not stealing, the Building Industry does not lose billions of dollars, and R&D investment into proper building design will not dry up.
If they ask, “who told you that?”, tell them www.buildingbuddy.com.au told you so.
Give the sketch to someone, like here at buildingbuddy.com.au, so that he can create a set of usable sketches for you; so people will not constantly be worrying you for funds to do ‘proper plans’ you may never use.

This approach is different and revolutionary; but only because people haven’t yet awoken to the reality that there should be a proper division of labour in the House Building Industry: Builders should Build the Homes; Designers should design homes people want; Draftsmen should prepare the working drawings; and Customers should only spend money on work that benefits them directly, not on speculation, and definitely not in order to create marketing material for BuildersOnce we have our Australian house plans designs clear, we next make sure we know how to get the Best Quality. Happy House Hunting!