Pre-Purchase Design Advice

Are you house hunting? Or tossing up whether you should renovate or move?

Maybe you’ve found a few homes or a few plans you like, and you’re trying to figure out which one best suits your needs? That means working out which options will offer the best thermal and energy performance and year-round comfort, as well as the kind of lifestyle you want to enjoy.

Our Architect GPs are really good at matching your needs to a particular house design or actual home. This stuff is our superpower. We spend years formally studying space and its future potential. We love working with existing houses because they have character, charm and are part of a neighbourhood.

We can help you determine how an existing home can be adapted for 21st century expectations and your particular circumstances - to extend its life and customise it for your family. That’s better for the environment and your own well-being.

We look at a home through a range of criteria including layout, orientation, planning context, environmental performance, and potential for improvement. We share that knowledge directly with you to empower your decision making.

If you need a technical “bricks, drainage, termites and roof” type of inspection, to see if a house is in good shape or whether it requires expensive rectification or maintenance, you’ll need a specialist building inspector, and we can refer you to trusted experts from our network.

In short, you want to know what you don’t know. Whether a house that you think looks good will actually work for your family now, and in the future.

We get it. Buying or building a home is a huge decision - probably the most expensive financial outlay you’ll ever make - so it makes good financial sense to seek expert help before you take the leap.

A pre-workshop Questionnaire to understand your goals and criteria.

A 2-hour workshop at your home, or nominated address, where you’ll get:

• The undivided attention of your Architect GP

• A workshop agenda to structure the discussion and enable you to prepare, so you get the most out of it

• A prepared Architect GP who has read your questionnaire, done desktop research of up to three property addresses and is ready to work. The fewer properties on your list; the more detailed the discussion can be

• You provide printed copies of floor plans and other information that you have on hand

• Custom templates for each property for objective and sensitive analysis

• Tim Tams, brought by your Architect GP, to keep our brains alert!

• Architectural sketches developed with you to illustrate existing design strengths and constraints, opportunities for “quick wins” and/or strategies for future design improvements (we show and listen, we never just tell!)

• Discussions of your budget and the impact that might have on your decision making

• The reassurance that comes from knowing that your decisions are based on real data and knowledge, having explored various scenarios and future potential for improvements

• A verbal summary of the key outcomes of the discussion and possible next steps

After the workshop, your Architect GP will create a summary Report for each property using the NOISE framework (Needs, Opportunities, Improvements, Strengths, Exceptions)

• The value is you can get a glimpse of what a real future could be like in that property and the ability to make objective comparisons across your nominated options.

$1,280 +GST

(+ $680 for each additional property)

You can book additional consultations with your dedicated Architect GP anytime via the Architect On-Call booking window.