Subdivision, Property Development + New Home Services

Public Open Space: When developing two units may be better than three…

by Adam on 31 August, 2010

Every now and again, we assess a potential development site as being equally suitable to be subdivided into 2 large dwellings or 3 small dwellings.

All things being equal, a three unit development should be more profitable than two.

Unfortunately, not all things are equal…

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Restrictive Covenant: Is your development over before it even begins?

by Adam on 24 August, 2010

in Property Development

We love what we do – but there’s one task we don’t look forward to: informing a client that their very impressive large block cannot developed.

There are many factors that might add constraints to a development, but there’s one factor that stops a development dead in its tracks – before it even begins.

And unfortunately, this development showstopper is very easy to miss.

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Front landscaping: How to disguise a steep slope

17 August 2010

Those with a keen eye might have noticed that our Surrey Hills HIA Award Winning property as featured last week in the Melbourne Weekly has since had a landscaping makeover.
Not long after the home was completed, the owners presented us with the next challenge:
How can they landscape the front garden of their home while gracefully [...]

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Designing the Future: Melbourne Weekly Cover Story (Downloadable PDF)

11 August 2010

Above: The Koedyk kids enjoy more than their 5 minutes of fame on the deck of our HIA Award Winning renovation – featured as the Cover Story in Melbourne Weekly and on the giant billboard of The Age building on Spencer Street.
In this week’s edition of ‘Melbourne Weekly’ magazine, Linley Wilkie interviewed our Designer and [...]

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Energy efficient house design: how much is each energy star really worth? (Free downloadable PDF)

3 August 2010

At the recent State of Design Festival, we prepared a number of home energy cost calculators that helped festival attendees answer the question:
“How much is each additional energy star really worth?”

In this post, we’ll compare the energy cost savings for the same house finished to different energy star ratings.

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Pixel Building Melbourne: 5 architectural lessons to apply to your new home

27 July 2010

Melburnians were given a treat this weekend, as 59 buildings around the city were opened to the public as part of Melbourne Open House 2010.
As far as Sustainable Architecture goes, the star attraction was Grocon’s Pixel Building – the first carbon neutral office building in Australia.
We took away 5 architectural lessons from the Pixel Building [...]

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State of Design 2010: Door Prize winner + your Top 5 questions answered

20 July 2010

6500+ visitors, 23 workshops and 4 days later – its hard to believe that the State of Design Festival is behind us!
Thank you to everyone who stopped by and said hello – we loved that you felt just as passionately as we did about environmentally sustainable Design + Build!
In this post:

We announce the winner of [...]

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Sustainable Housing by Design: The Lunchtime Sessions

20 July 2010

Over the course of the State of Design Festival 2010 we had more demand for our Sustainable Housing by Design workshops than we had places available.
As a result we will continue to hold a limited number of extra workshops over special, lunchtime sessions until the end of July!

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Does sustainable architecture pay off?

14 July 2010

Australians no longer need to be convinced of the merits of sustainability for environmental reasons.
But how much value does Sustainable Architecture actually add to our house price?
Fortunately, a little known experiment that commenced over ten years ago in the ACT, can help us answer the question:
“Does Sustainable Architecture pay off?”

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Sustainable Architecture Pillar 7: Materials

6 July 2010

When it comes to building materials for your new home, there are now more sustainable products to choose from than ever before.
But did you know that you can actually make an even bigger difference for the environment than merely selecting enviro-friendly products?

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