So, youre writing your brief?

What's a brief?

A brief is a document that outlines the key details, goals, and requirements of a project. It serves as a roadmap for your designer, ensuring that they understand your vision, needs, and constraints of your new home or renovation.

You CAN change it! Probably the most famous disregard for the brief was the Sydney Opera House, when Jorn Utzon submitted his competition entry for the Sydney Opera House, imagine what Sydney would look like without it, but it can come at a cost. The Opera House famously cost about 3 times its initial budget.

A brief is a living document, it can change, be added to or subtracted but it's your kicking off point. Get everything in it though because it's much easier to take it out than putting something in later.

What spaces do you need?

Pursuing architecture is expensive. Building a new home, or renovating an existing home is expensive, regardless of how you go about it but there's ways to minimise costs and a great way to do this is by overlaying functions within spaces.

What's a bedroom?

Take the simple bedroom.

The average Australian household size has been trending downwards, with the 2021 Census indicating an average of 2.5 people per household yet the average new house in Australia typically has 3.11 bedrooms and three in every four homes also have a spare bedroom.

So with everything being so expensive, why are we building homes with all of these bedrooms? Each bedroom you add is worth at least one year worth of repayments on your mortgage and what are you getting for it? A rarely used space that costs you thousands. I'm definitely not saying that builder developers are pushing extra bedrooms because they make more of a profit off it, or that they are incentivised to sell bigger homes than people need, or even want because they make more profit from them. But our houses are getting bigger.

This is why we need to think about what we need in a space, or how we will use a space. Is the spare bedroom for the once in a year visitor? Maybe there's a better way to use that space. Look at the work of Maxwell & Page, award winning architects practicing in Newcastle NSW https://www.maxwellpage.com.au/dachshund-house.

By placing a concealed fold-down bed in the rumpus room of Dachshund House, they were able provide the functionality of a rumpus room and visitor bedroom in the same space. Now, this might just sound like, well I can just put a cabinet in any room and turn it into a bedroom but this is where the act of architecture comes into the equation. It's not simply placing a concealed fold-down bed in any room, they have taken consideration of what would make a visitor feel comfortable staying in a rumpus room. They have zoned the house to be able to satisfy two separate functions, with completely different needs in the one space. This saves the environmental and financial cost of an additional bedroom.

It's not a matter of solving a problem, it's how do we solve a problem beautifully.

How big's your Rumpus?

Take the simple rumpus room. Sometimes we can't overlay functions within spaces but we can allow one space to open out into an adjacent space. When done properly, this can allow spaces to be smaller than they otherwise need to be. How big does a room have to be? The answer is usually as big as possible but what if we tried to make it as small as possible?

This is why we need to think about what we need in a space, or how we will use a space. Is the Rumpus Room a place to throw the kids when we have a party, or is it a space that allows for small and large get togethers. Maybe there's a better way to use that space. Look at our project EJ House.

By placing the Rumpus Room away from the house, we are able to create a covered courtyard between the existing house and the new Rumpus Room. We now have one large space that can be used for large gatherings, or two small spaces that can be used for small gatherings, or two adjacent spaces which allow the adults their space and the kids their own space with a very handy large glass door between the two.

By covering the courtyard, we can also eat outside all year round and with good passive environmental design, we can ventilate the space and get as much sun as possible during the winter.

We can open and close spaces to protect from the weather, or quieten down towards the end of the evening. We don't need to go to the expense of having a large indoor, and or a large outdoor space to fulfil two separate functions and scales of function.

"Form follows function" as the architect Louis Sullivan said.

How big does a room have to be? The answer is usually as big as possible but what if we tried to make it as small as possible?