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Microphone: Welcome to the Smart Living Spaces podcast. I am your host, Sharon Robinson. I am the author of this book, Babe Let's Build a House, and that is the basis of this podcast. So this is episode seven. Now, if you were listening to a previous episode of mine, which was episode six, I covered the traditional NZIA process that some architects and designers use. if if they're with the NZIA and perhaps with the ADNZ And the reason why I wanted to go into their process is because I've based my process on their stages because they make sense and they work and they're a very good structure. But because I'm a sole practitioner, what I'm actually able to do is to simplify things. I am a certified passive house designer, I'm a Homestar designer and assessor. So I can weave that all into my process, but I'm also, as a sole practitioner, the person that's in the meetings with clients, with builders. And I'm also the person that does the work. So that means that I'm actually able to streamline things a little bit differently than a larger practice. And that's just the nature of the beast. So I'm going to now explain to you The process that I use. I'm going to go through the various stages, but fundamentally I'm going to start off with the overview that some people ring up to say how much to draw plans. And plans are not just a product, you don't just buy them off the shelf. They're actually a set of instructions loosely that enable banks to lend, contracts to be drawn up, builders to build, for certifications to be made and for consents to be granted. But before we get to the instructions, we need to consider two other really, really important steps. One is we need to evaluate the goals and ambitions that you have as a client for your project. And we need to establish whether you can afford it or not and if it's in alignment with your budget. Because obviously, if it's not, this whole process is not a wise investment. The second reason is that our homes are our largest financial investment that many of us make in our lifetime. It is the largest bill many of us will pay. And it's going to take the longest to pay it off. So if you're not investing enough time in establishing what your aspirations are and how they are aligned with affordability that of your affordability, and then what that vision is actually going to look like, and you're launching straight into these instructions, what you're doing is that you could be really quickly creating something that's not fit for your purpose, fit for your use, and fit for your stability and future. In terms of an investment, let alone a space that supports your health and well-being. So we need to establish that brief, really importantly, with those aspirations. We need to then develop the vision of that, and then we can develop those instructions. And it's those instructions that I hear people really wanting when they ring up and say how much to draw plans. So it's really easy to stand on the outside and think that this process is incredibly simple because you know a little bit about it. But it is a process and it is a series of stages of development to the point where we can get it to where it's useful to getting a builder on site and then used to get you into your new home. So I will relate my process to the previous episode. So if you haven't listened to episode six, I encourage you to go back and take a wee listen to it. But fundamentally, I start my process with a design consultation, I go into concept design. We have a client meeting at the end of concept design. I go into develop design. We have a client meeting at the end of develop design. I then go into that building consent documentation and detail working. I can sometimes split that off into working drawings as required. We then go for building consent. I'll explain to you where's a good time to have a QS come in and price your design and when's a good time to deal with resource consent, which is planning approval. There is a difference between resource consent and building consent. Resource consent is sometimes reply required on your project. Not all projects require it, which is planning permission. But if you're not needing to seek planning permission, you'll need a building consent. All projects require a building consent and they say exempt, such as the Granny Flats. And then after going through the building consent at Council, the next stage I go into is design certification. Construction drawings if needed, which will take care and take into account anything to do with interior designing. and then the offsite observation stage. And then we get the completion and the sign-off of your project. Okay. So the design consultation. In the previous episode, episode six, I talked about the pre-design meeting and then the preliminary design that is done by some architects' practices. Now I've combined those two stages into one and I've called it a design consultation. So this in my practice is a paid service. Because what I do is I do all of that site feasibility and analysis before I meet with my clients. It's the people who sign up for a design consultation are fairly serious about their project. They may have gone to a mortgage broker or their bank to find out what they can borrow. In episode five, I cover how to prepare for the first meeting. So my clients have come to me having done that due diligence too. So this design consultation that I that I have with them is a very, very robust planning. session. They've obviously got their aspirations, but we're we're now talking about the feasibility of it in reality in terms of of budget and also aspirations. So those two stages are combined together. We in in my process we talk budget, we talk about the difference between project budget and build budget. You will have a figure in your head that is your project budget. It needs to include a whole heap of things. But when we're evaluating the feasibility of your build project, yes, we need
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to know about all the other people and what they cost and all the other processes and applications and certification fees are. so consent, consultant certification and design fees. We need to know those. But what we also need to know is are your aspirations actually able to be built with all of those costs there marrying up to that figure that you have in your head? So in a in an in a future episode, I do cover. I can't tell you which episode it is off the top of my head. I will cover the difference between build budget and project budget in more detail. But I talk about that in a design consultation and distill that into a rough budget. so this is not just a case of how much to draw plans. This is about really dealing d diving down into your project and working out what the process is going to look like, how long is it going to take, who else do we need on it, how much is it gonna cost, and what exactly it is that we're doing. I really do like having a builder and a design consultation. So this is why I say, and I've I say it a few times, I'm not a fan of tendering. tendering is when you take a detailed set, like a detailed design or building consent set, and you send it out to two or three or four builders and you ask them to price for it. I'm big on collaboration, I'm big on adding value, I'm big on forming teamwork, and I'm big on trust. It's it's not Easy to as a business owner and as a builder to contribute hugely towards a project in the initial stages when there's no certainty of you getting a job. It we all run businesses and we all have to be mindful of where we invest our time. So I find bringing a builder on at the design consultation stage really, really helpful. It does mean that for your project, you're not going through that tendering process in the first instance, and your builder may charge you for their time, and fairly so because they're contributing, right? And they're valuable. but I find with tendering, if it's only chosen on price only, you ignore actually the people who are creating it and actually the quality of what you're building. And fundamentally, I think that that is really important when you're looking at quality standards like Passive House and Homestar. I do cover Passive House and Homestar in episode eight and episode nine, which is the next episode, episode eight. So you'll understand how. why my process works because I I am in the passive house space. So the next stage after this design consultation, now this is a great first easy little step for clients. As I said in my practice, it's prepaid, it's a paid service. So clients come in, they have the meeting, they get a report, and then we're able to sit give them an indication of the fees moving forward into their job because we've actually got quite a set scope. When you don't have clarity, you can't have a surety of cost. And this is going to be the dance that you're going to have through this entire process, but we need to be having those upfront, honest conversations and getting on the same page early on. You should be talking about budget through the entire process. But what we what we want to be doing is we want to get as much clarity as possible to move you forward into the right space. So I'm able to offer my clients a fixed fee for concept design. I do go into more detail, and I'm just looking at the chapter number now. I do go into more detail about types of fees. And that will be in episode 11. and also types of contracts. I will go into the different types of contracts that you'll have with your builder. Because fundamentally, if we can gear this process to give people the right amount of detail, then they can give us better assurance of cost. And then there's no hidden surprises. If your lending's quite tight and your bank hasn't given you a lot of leeway in terms of sums, and they want to lock you down into specifics, I'll say. you really want to invest in this process wisely to get the most detailed instructions possible. But we're not there yet. So we're still in the concept design stage. So we are now taking all of this feasibility and we're starting to throw it into 3D. We're starting to see how it sits on your site. We're starting to look at it in terms of any performance targets that we've set in that design consultation. So that is a set deliverable. I deliver my concept design in three dimensions as well as plans. I think it's only about 30% of people that can understand plans, read plans, or visualize in 3D from plans. So that's means that 70% of people are probably looking at the plans of their new house and not quite realizing what they're getting. So for me, it's really important that I deliver that in three dimensions and I deliver it in a model that my clients are able to walk through, kind of like you're in a computer game. But It means that people can get an idea of the experience that they're going to have in their house. Now, my my company is called Smart Living Spaces because we live in the spaces that we're creating. We don't experience in them by what they look like from the opposite side of the street. So having an idea of what those spaces are going to feel like and be like and work as for for a client's experience is really quite important to me. So at the end of concept design, I issue the drawings and a 3D model off to my clients and I give them some time. To really digest what it is that they're creating. Because if we're going to come back together for a meeting, I want people to have had some time to understand and comprehend it. When I'm explaining a design for the first time to anybody, I can see that their brains going around going, I'm trying to understand this, I'm trying to understand this. Whereas if they've understood it a little bit more, they'll have more questions, they'll have more engagement, they'll have more input. And this means that at the end of a concept design, when we have a concept design meeting, It's a really productive meeting to
then say, what don't you like? What do you like? What do we need to change? What have you changed your mind on? What do we need to tweak? How is this sitting? This is where it is performance-wise. This is where it is with those planning rest requirements. This is where we're sitting with roughly in terms of how we're going to work the structure. And so we can have this really robust conversation. And this is kind of where we think we're sitting with price. do we need to pull back a little bit? What are your expectations here? What is the level that of the design that you want to take moving forward? Remember, we have to start with massing it and visualizing it before we can get into choosing our bathroom tile tiles and our tapware. This is still big picture stuff, but fundamentally it's the basis and the structure for getting all of those other decisions made down the track. So once we've had our concept design meeting, we then move into a stage called develop design. And as I explained in the last episode, The the develop design stage in my practice is exactly the same. It acts as a link between those detailed instructions and this vision that we have have created. This is also the stage where you pull in other people and other consultants, any landscape designers, stormwater and septic designs, structural engineers, geotechnical engineers. If you're using off-site products, shop drawings, starting to talk to the manufacturers about this, if you're buying windows from overseas. If you're importing high-performance windows, starting to have those conversations with the window manufacturers, and of course having your builder on board too at this stage. But this is bringing in the other people that you're going to need to involve in your project. If you need resource consent, also bringing in a planner. And once you've got to the end of develop design stage, it's a really prudent time to get a high-level cost estimate from a quantity surveyor. So these guys deal with quantities and cost. That is their job, that is their area of expertise. because if you're not pricing jobs every single day, and I'm an architectural designer, I'm not a quantity surveyor. If you're not pricing jobs every single day, you don't have a finger on the pulse of what's happening in that space. so some builders, if you've got a builder that you've brought on right from the beginning, they might be happy to put some numbers to your project. Remember, putting numbers to a project is actually quite an intense exercise, it's not a five-minute job. so please don't expect that for free. But it's a good price checkpoint because the developed design stage is still relatively fluid. There's enough detail to have a better idea of cost than we did have in the beginning, but and have it independently costed. But it's also a really good stage to be able to make any tweaks that you can so that it's still affordable and easy to do. When we get into the next stage, which is the building consent stage and the detailed design stage and the instructions, any changes you make in that stage take a lot more time. require a lot more changes to the drawings that have already been completed and obviously cost more in terms of design fees. So this stage is quite fundamental. If you need to stay in the stage, I say to my clients, if need to stay in the stage, stay in it for as long as you need to until we've got this to a point where you can push play for going further forward. It's also the stage that's really a good idea to apply for what we call resource consent. As I said in a previous episode, I can't remember if I said it in that one, that one or this one. If your project requires planning permission because you've broken some of those planning rules that apply to your site, you're going to need planning permission, which is resource consent. Building consent is building approval, but resource consent is planning approval only if you're breaking those rules. So at this stage, it's a really good idea to get your planner on board, get them to submit the resource consent for you. The develop design drawings actually need a little bit of extra information added to them to demonstrate where you're breaking those rules and by how much. And why, and then the council will then decide whether you can do what it is that you're planning to do by breaking those laws or not. Really important to get that approval here because if you go into the next stage, which is the super intense stage, and you haven't got planning approval, you're potentially spending a lot of money in an expensive stage that's not working for you and is isn't going to eventuate to anything. So Developed design stage is that stage that's also customizable depending upon what your project needs. it's also a really good stage to do in a preliminary assessment if you're going for passive house or home star and do a preliminary design assessment. Now, if you are going for passive house or home star, hopefully your your designer has actually already put it through energy modeling to assess that the design's actually working with the targets that you've set in your design consultation. That's the way that I do it. So that we're assessing those really those those fundamentals in terms of performance. But there's a there's a few other criteria, particularly with HomeStar, that you want to just evaluate right now. Have we got this right? Are we on the right path? Because are we checking it at a time where we can make tweaks so that we can make it make it a possibility, not just hope, just just hope it's gonna happen for us. Okay. Also, if you've got an external consultant on your project as a passive house consultant or a home star designer assessor who's not in the design team or in your architect's in your designer's practice, I am, so I'm doing all of these assessments as I go. But if you've got someone external to your project, this is the stage where you you certainly want to be
having really detailed conversations with them. You probably want to check with them early on if you're bringing them in as a consultant at that concept stage and and maybe even in the design consultation stage. but as I said, that doesn't apply to my practice because I am those things. so say we've got our planning, we're all on track for Home Star 10, we're all on track for HomeStar, we've got our we've got our resource consent, the QS has come back, everyone's great, everyone's happy, we're ready to rock and roll, we're ready to go on to the next stage. The next stage is the building consent documentation stage for me. This is about 50% of all fees for a project. And the reason why I tell you that is that. It's about 50% of the entire work on the project. People think that we just draw pretty pictures on the back of napkins with pens in restaurants while drinking coffee. No, a big, big part of my job is to get those nitty-gritty details. How's that cladding coming together? And how's it how's it marrying up to where your roof meets your wall? And how where's that window detail? And how's it waterproofed and how it's sitting in the wall? What's the what's the energy modelling saying and does it comply with the building code? Although hopefully you've established this a little bit earlier. How are we coordinating with the structural engineer, with the foundations that they need? What's the information that the builder needs on those plans in order to construct it? All of those sorts of considerations. How does this go together? How does it stand up? How does the structure from the structural engineer coordinate with, say, SIPS panels? All of that nuts and bolts of putting it together are considered in this stage. How's it braced? How does it stand up in an earthquake? How does it stand up if it's extremely high winds? We want to know all of that stuff right now. so that is what the building consent documentation does. So it does a few things. It demonstrates to the local council how your building complies with the building code. All buildings have to comply with the building code. Co-compliance and building consent isn't a mark of quality, it's a show of legality. and so it does that. It's also a set of instructions now for your builder to go off and start pricing your job because they've got the level of detail. now you can issue those drawings, and and sometimes I issue them to the builders at this stage, and they can start pricing it while it's at council for building consent. Depends on the complexity of the project, but There will be slight tweaks to those drawings because inevitably the council have some queries and you have to put it on the drawings for the building consent. Just to labor this, so that once that building consent documentation is done, which is the massive amount, you also get a project-specific specification. So all of your consultants' documentations, all of your architectural design stuff, design certificates, all of that stuff, I then submit to your local building consent authority to get building consent. It is your responsibility as a client to get building consent for your project, but I apply for it on your behalf. so that sits at council. Councils say typically 20 working days for a building to consent to come through. There's invariably IFIs or requests for information, requests for further information, in other words, clarification. that typically comes at 20 working days. So I say easily at least go for six to eight weeks. Eight's probably more recommended. So don't Don't tie yourself to starting on site so quickly after your building consent is lodged. So once you've got your building consent out from council, there may be some additional drawing work to do if you're going for Passive House and Homestar, you've got an interior designer, or if I mean I do some of my interior design work for my clients. especially if you're tiling a lot of your bathrooms or kitchen designs and you're wanting to get accurate pricing for that by your builder and you want to get that locked in, especially if you need that for your mortgage. You want to get that information done. But that's not what the council require in those you know, they they don't need to evaluate and see those drawings. Air tightness junctions, etc. for homesty passive house, they the council don't don't need to see that stuff. So we can do those sort of that stuff while we're waiting for your building consent to come out of council. And then that can be sent off to your builder to inform his contractual price. As I said, if your mortgage is really tight and there's not a lot of PC sums that you can rely on, you need your specification locked down. That's a really important stage to get clear on that stuff to ensure that you've actually got the lending to cover for it. Then once we've got your design certification for passive house and your design certification for HomeStar lodged. Your builder then will start on site. He's got his building consent. You've signed the contract with him. so you've got a contract in place. Please don't let your builder start work on your site without a signed contract. It's a legal requirement, and your bank will want to see that signed contract in order to give you a mortgage. You may need an independent surveyor to be evaluating the building works as payment claims come through from your builder, but so that the bank can release the funds either. directly to your builder or to you to to give to the builder. So this is the stage. Now we're site, we've signed all our contracts. We've got it from from planning from our project plan stage to our visualization stage to our instruction stage to to our compliance stage. We've got all the compliance approvals that we need and we've done all the legal checks and we've got all the legal documents and st in place. Now we're building on-site. And in this particular stage, I offer a service called On-Site Observation. Now, if
you'd listened to my my last episode, episode six, you would have known I talked about the difference between contract administration and on-site observation. So contract administration means when it's an NZIA contract that the builder and the client both sign. And then the architect as an NZIA member becomes the overseer of that contract. That's not the way I operate. I there are master build contracts, there are certified builders' contracts that builders use. Those organizations are are very good. And what happens in my practice is the client will sign a contract direct with that builder, just like the client will sign a contract with me directly with Smart Living Spaces for the design work. But I do on-site observation, which means that I Show up every couple of weeks, meet with the builder and the client, meet with you and your builder on site, discuss all the challenges, talk about what needs to happen. I keep track of minutes. I do the admin on it. do yes to the do the PA work on it. I like to keep a track, a running total of all of the variations, even though I'm not approving them and issuing them. just so that we've got a budget tracker, because I find a lot of the variations are issued, excluding GST. And it's just it's just a good way of keeping everyone in the loop of where we're sitting budget wise because as as I said earlier, if your mortgage is really tight, you want to be keeping a close eye on all of this and then considering you might need to consider alternatives. so I'm I'm on site to advise and bring all my experience with it and work with the builder. In the high performance space like passive house and homestad too, it's really important to keep things on track with those certifications because they're not They're not a building consent legal certification. They're an independent standard certification. And you can get interest rate reductions on your mortgage for doing passive house or homestar, which means you really fundamentally want to make sure this happens for you. This is also the stage where as a certified passive house designer and Homestar designer and assessor, I'm collating evidence. I'm collating evidence to submit to that independent certifier so that they can say, yep, yep, what we certified as being Complying with the standard at the design stage, we can actually verify that that has actually been implemented in the build stage and you would have achieved that. And as I said, quite critical if your mortgage interest rate reductions that you're going for are dependent upon those certifications. So then the final ending is when we get sign off, we submit your project for CCC, for the final certifications for Passive House and Homestar, and you get to move in. you get to move into your new home. I do I will be covering in an episode what to expect after you've moved in because I think there's some assumptions about what your new home is going to be or not be. So that is one of the final episodes that I'll be covering. So episode 20 or 21 I think. So just to wrap up and summarize of the process that I use, it's very simplified because I'm a sole practitioner and because I'm a small practice, I'm actually able to do this. But that fundamentally When we have a design consultation, we're assessing feasibility, we're assessing the project plan, the budget, the time frames, the other people, the who, how, when, and how kind of big picture plan. Then we move into the visualization based on that plan and informed by that plan. We link it with this developed design, which is kind of the collaborative hub where we're pulling in all the other people that we need to, we're briefing them, we're getting contracts in place with them, and then we're developing this large set of instructions. That your build is going to price, that the council are going to evaluate, and that your bank is going to be willing to lend on, and also that we can get those certifications for passive house and homestar. And then we move to the build side with the on-site observation and on to completion. So that is concept to completion process here at Smart Living Spaces. Now I've talked a lot about Passive House and Homestar. So in the next episode, which is episode eight, I'm going to be covering Passive House. Now, just quickly on the process that I use, I have a a page on my website which explains this all. so I will put that link into the show notes, but I also have a brochure for Smart Living Spaces that explains that all in detail too. So I'll put the link if you're one of those downloads and like to reads lots of stuff, people, you know, one of those analytical clients and decision makers, I'll put the link down below so that you can get access to that guide. But next episode I'm going to be talking about passive house. it's not going to be about what passive house is. It's going to be more about why you should choose it and what benefit it unlocks for you. So that's all for me today. Until next time, I'll catch you later.