Before the design begins

So you’re ready to renovate? Most people assume the design process starts with ideas. Sketches on a napkin, inspiration images saved to a folder, a vision for what the kitchen could be. And yes, all of that has its place. But the work that makes a renovation successful starts earlier than most people realise. For some, that starts before they've even bought the property. For everyone else, it starts before a single line is drawn.

Here's what the pre-design phase actually involves, and why it matters.

Architect, Interior Designer, or both?
One of the first questions people ask at this stage is whether they need an architect or an interior designer. The honest answer is that most renovations need both. The architect resolves the structure and the space: how rooms relate, where light comes from, how the addition sits on the site. The interior designer resolves how it feels to live in: the materials, the joinery, the palette, the details your hands actually touch every day. Hire them separately and you're coordinating two visions and hoping they agree.

At Nace Studio the two happen together, from the same team, with a shared vision from the first conversation. The space plan and the palette. The structure and the feeling. It's the reason our process runs the way it does, and you'll see both threads woven through everything that follows.

The Discovery Call
Before anything else, we offer a free discovery call. Not a quote conversation. A fit conversation. We want to understand your project, how you live, what you're trying to achieve, and whether we're the right people to help you get there.

How we gel matters. A renovation is a long process and we'll be working closely together for the duration of it, through decisions, tradeoffs, and the moments where things don't go to plan. The relationship has to work before the project can.

The Site Visit
If the discovery call leaves you keen to progress the conversation, the next step is bringing us on site. This isn't the detailed measure-up, that comes later. It's a walkthrough. We move through the spaces together, talk through your brief in context, and get a sense of the scope, the constraints and the opportunities before we put a fee to anything. It's where the project starts to feel real for both of us.

The fee proposal
Once we've walked through your home and confirmed the scope together, we put together your fee proposal. Our fees are fixed price per stage, so you know exactly what you're committing to before you move forward. Because the proposal comes after the site visit, it reflects the actual scope of your project rather than assumptions made over the phone.

A note on project pricing: we can't give you a construction cost estimate at this point, and anyone who does is guessing. A realistic budget for the build only becomes possible once the design is complete, structural engineering has been engaged, and the full scope of work is documented. We'll guide you through that process, but we won't put a number on something we haven't designed yet.

Planning analysis
Before design work begins, we look at what the planning controls on your property actually allow. This means checking for overlays, heritage controls, zoning restrictions, and whether your project is likely to require a planning permit from council.

One of the first things we look at is whether your project will require a planning permit, a building permit, or both. They do different things.

A planning permit is about whether you have permission to build what you're proposing. It's assessed by your local council and considers things like the impact on neighbours, streetscape, and the planning scheme. Not every project requires one, but if yours does, it needs to be lodged and approved before a building permit can be issued.

A building permit is about how you're building it. It's issued by a building surveyor (not the council) and confirms that what is being built complies with the relevant building regulations. This is required for almost all structural renovation work.

Something worth knowing: building regulations change. What was permissible when a home was last renovated may not meet today's standards. Accessibility requirements, minimum clearances around wet areas, energy efficiency thresholds. These things shift, and any new building work has to comply with the current rules. It's part of why working with a registered architect matters.

Documenting the existing site
Once the proposal is accepted, the first job is documenting the home properly. We come back to measure the spaces and record the existing conditions, producing accurate as-built drawings that everything is designed on. We'll also send through the pre-design questionnaire at this point. It covers how you live, what you need, and what you're hoping to achieve, so that by the time design begins we're already thinking about your project specifically.

Getting to know your site
Alongside the measure-up, we commission a feature and levels survey from a licensed land surveyor. This is one of those things clients sometimes question until they understand what it does. It maps the exact boundaries, levels, and existing conditions of your property with a precision that a tape measure simply can't achieve. Council will require it as part of any planning permit application anyway, so having it from the beginning means we're designing with accurate information from day one rather than retrofitting it later. It saves time and it protects you.

In practice, pre-design moves quickly on our end. The site visit can usually happen within days of the discovery call, with the fee proposal following shortly after. Once you accept, the planning analysis, measure-up and questionnaire get underway and we commission the feature and levels survey, which takes around 15 business days from the surveyor accepting the quote. In most cases pre-design runs three to four weeks in total, which also gives you a good chunk of time to think really deeply about what you want.

Most clients are surprised by how much information needs to be gathered before design work can actually begin. This is the foundation everything else is built on. It's not the most exciting part of the process, but it's the part that makes the rest of it real.

What comes next
Once pre-design is complete, concept design begins. That's where the ideas start to take shape and where the work of reflecting your brief back to you in built form gets underway. We'll cover that in the next post.

If you're at the beginning of this process and want to talk through what it might look like for your project, we're always happy to start with a conversation.