How to save costs with minimal sacrifice when designing a home
Asking an architect how to save money on a build or renovation might seem counterintuitive…
After all, don’t architectural fees and finishes add to the cost? This is a myth we want to challenge – so if you value good design that responds to your lifestyle, here is how you can build an architectural home without blowing the budget.
1. Know where to invest
Once you have explained your budget and ideas, it is our job to show you ways of maximising value for money.
We believe that well-considered architecture does not need to rely on expensive finishes or huge rooms to look like a custom-designed home. Of course there will be areas where you will want to invest – such as the kitchen – and you can offset this with simplicity in spaces such as bedrooms and wardrobes.
When deciding where to invest, we recommend:
Prioritising high-flow spaces such as living areas
Choosing finishes that will age well
Considering long-term maintenance costs
The right thinking at this stage will see your investment grow in value. In many cases architectural homes outpace the growth of the housing market, with research showing that architect-designed properties improved in value by 1.2% per annum when compared with non-architectural homes. See more on ArchitectureAU.
2. Prioritise passive design
When your home captures natural breezes and different qualities of light during the day, it is a joy to live in.
The objective of passive design is to ensure the home is comfortable year round, without the need for excessive cooling and heating. When designing from scratch, you have the opportunity to create a home that is naturally lit and ventilated, which saves you costs in running the home and reduces your environmental impact.
This is part of the architectural process and does not affect the design fees, so these considerations do not affect the cost of designing your home.
3. Invest in durable materials
While it is tempting to use cheap materials to keep costs down, this decision will cost you in the long term in maintenance and replacements (particularly in spaces such as kitchens and bathrooms, where wear and tear occurs at a much faster rate).
If you are using timeless options such as timber, we recommend investing in quality, durable materials that will age gracefully with your home.
4. Create multi-functional spaces
The simplest way to save money is by limiting the overall footprint of your home. If you look at countries such as Japan (one of our favourite destinations for design tours), you will find endless ideas for creating functional, beautiful homes with limited space.
We can draw on thinking from around the world to consider how the spaces in your home can serve more than a single purpose and adapt to different uses in the future. For example, when fitting out our own studio, we challenged ourselves to create a space that could potentially be used as a granny flat or teenager’s retreat in future, so the investment has longevity.
5. Work with the outdoors
Leading on from that last point, you can use your outdoor spaces to add amenity to your home with minimal investment. Outdoor rooms require less built infrastructure than internal living spaces, and provide more opportunities for connecting with your environment.
Additionally, by finding ways to draw in natural light from outdoors and open up rooms to outdoor views, your internal spaces will feel larger without the need to build big. This is the approach we took on the Beaumont Apartment renovation to open up the space without major disruption to the existing floorplan.
6. Plan in stages
Have plans to create space for your parents to live in the future, or maybe an external home office? It doesn’t have to happen all at once if your budget is limited.
If you tell us how you plan to use your home long term, this can be considered in the initial design stage to ensure the design allows you to extend your home in future.
A workshop is the most effective way to identify cost-saving opportunities without investing in the full architectural design process. Contact us to learn more about what we cover in a workshop.