DOGGIES MAGAZINE ISSUE 1

Grand Designs
is reality TV, but not how it really works
If you’ve ever watched this popular TV
home building show, you may have
noticed that only a handful of homes
are elegant, achieve planning approvals
relatively smoothly and are not
constantly amended during construction.
More often than not, these projects are
architect-designed.
Trouble is, a smooth sailing project just doesn’t
make great TV and goes against the aims of the
show’s producers. They’re under pressure to serve
up a heightened level of drama and uncertainty
to attract viewers and keep them watching. They
know that watching real people aiming to create
their dream home and stuffing up is TV gold.
Unfortunately, one of the by-products of this
approach is that the role of the architect is often
concealed or entirely absent. This is particularly
evident in well-executed projects where an
architect is involved. This erasing of the architect’s
role often becomes a very obvious ‘elephant in the
room’. It perpetuates the myth espoused by much
of the building industry, not to mention that missinformed
‘brother in law’ of yours, who says that
you don’t need an architect.
Actually, you do. Here are just a few reasons why:
• Appoint an architect to your project and you’ll
gain a home designed for the way you want to
live. The alternative is a builder-designed home
that suits what the builder is used to building.
Good builders ask for plans and specifications to
be thoroughly documented so that they can go
ahead and do what they do best, which is build.
Working out with the owner what you’re going
to build and why is the architect’s role.
• An architect manages planning approvals. This
process is complex, often arbitrarily applied
by many Councils, fraught with pitfalls for the
novice and is ramped up every year with new
hoops to jump. If you want a professional on
your side who knows the territory, will go in to
bat for you and will forge a way through this
minefield, you need an architect.
• If you’d prefer to put the works to tender to a
number of builders rather than having to accept
the quote of the builder you started the process
with, you need an architect.
• If you’d prefer to protect yourself with a
proper, architect-managed ABIC contract that
works equally for both parties and is legally
enforceable, you need an architect.
• An architect will minimise costly changes during
construction as he or she will produce a proper
level of drawings (expect 20 x A3 pages for a
new home, rather than the 1-2 pages you’ll
receive from a drafting service.). The reasons for
this is that you have on paper exactly what you
want to build. Without this, you are entering a
contract with a builder with none of the details
resolved. You wouldn’t do that if you were
buying a house, so why do it when spending an
equally significant amount of money?