Can you help before I speak to a builder?

Most people begin a renovation by looking for a builder. It feels logical — until you realise a builder cannot accurately price, plan, or advise on a project that hasn't been properly designed. Without clear design documentation, builders are forced to make assumptions. That's how scopes drift, costs escalate, and outcomes fall short. The role of a designer is to define what is being built before construction begins.

What does a building designer do?

A building designer creates detailed architectural plans and documentation for residential and commercial projects. At Design Science, we provide full design services including site analysis, concept development, detailed construction drawings, energy assessments, and council approval documentation. Our dual qualification as both Licensed Builder and Building Designer means designs are practical, buildable, and cost-realistic.

How much does a building designer cost on the Gold Coast?

Building designer fees on the Gold Coast typically range from $4,000 to $15,000+ for renovations and $8,000 to $25,000+ for custom homes, depending on project complexity. At Design Science, we offer an initial paid consultation that is credited toward your project if you proceed with a full design engagement.

Custom Home Designs

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We work with you to ensure your design requirements are met at the highest standards

A approach goes beyond standard building design — whether it’s a new build or a renovation redesign. We take the features and concepts your looking for and find the solution that fits your desire, lifestyle and budget. Our step-by-step process ensures nothing is left to chance. Whether you’re building from scratch or considering a renovation of your existing home, we bring the same rigour to every project. Successful Building Design and subsequent project completion is inevitably a compromise between our dreams and the space and funds we have to work with. We guide you through the compromise by offering experience based alternatives when required. Quite often its a process of digging deeper into your wants, needs and dreams to find the best solution.

Is the design practical, or is function being cast aside for form. Can the finish or look be achieved with other products, can the space be made to feel bigger or more cozy through design alteration. Is my space working with and for me, or against me. Is my design working with my climate, environment and lifestyle choices. How do i feel about maintenance, climate control, energy efficiency, cleaning and privacy. Will my design be naturally cooler in summer and warmer in winter.

How we find the answer to these questions and how they fit with your vision is the ultimate determination of the standard of design.

Beautiful solutions that integrate in the environment

Design Science is founded in “how things should be, not how things are”. Be it your home or your place of business, how it works and integrates within its environment — including sustainable design principles, and how you live within the environment it creates, is a major factor within the science of building design.

The technical elements of your design begin with location. What climatic conditions are experienced within the location of your project and how do they affect your building. How hot is it in summer or cold is it in winter. From what direction does the sun rise and fall at different times of the year. From what direction do the cooling breezes of summer come from or the freezing winds of winter. Is my project high on a hill, low in a hollow, surrounded by vegetation or surrounded by neighbors. Which direction does the rain and storms come from, and which direction do views into and out of my neighbors come from.

The application of these technical elements determine how well our design will fit with our desired lifestyle. We consider how you wish to live or work within your space and how best we can utilize design elements to influence the environment within that space. Design can affect both indoor and outdoor living.

About the Custom Plans and Build Process

Initial Contact

This is usually a phone chat — get in touch in order to gain and understanding of what you are looking to achieve, your timeframe and your budget.

Based on this discussion we will provide an initial “rough” estimate of what price range our design services will likely fall into. You may decide to opt for a no obligation consultation first, or jump straight into a formal quotation and design journey.

Consultation Only

The next step be it a consultation only or formal design journey is a site visit and consultation. We are dedicated to providing you with the best possible service and outcome and value both our time and yours. For a consultation and advice only situation, we charge a basic fee of $280 that is fully refundable should you decide to engage our services following the consultation. For this small fee we provide access to decades of experience and knowledge that will pay for itself many times over during your design and subsequent building journey, whether you choose to continue with our services or not.

Building is a substantial and quite often most expensive investment you will make. We believe that you should gain the best advice possible and enter into the journey with eyes wide open.

Step 1 – The Brief

We will access the site conditions and constraints and discuss what will be realistically required to achieve your vision. We are not just Building Designers, but Licensed Builders who have ‘been on the tools’ and understand the finer details of actually carrying out the construction of your design.

This will provide both you and us, with a deeper understanding of your project. We provide professional advice with have a genuine desire to help. We will then provide a written proposal for undertaking the task of putting your vision onto paper in a format that can be submitted for local building approval and subsequent construction.

Preliminaries

There may be e a requirement for a Site Survey to be completed in order to locate and mark property boundaries and location of your existing sewer, water and power connections. This is much more desirable than beginning a construction project only to find out down the track that the boundary wasn’t actually where you thought it was, or your floors are built lower than the latest flood level information recorded. In addition to this, stormwater paths can be of critical importance, the site survey will detail the falls and slopes of the land.

A Soil Test and Wind Speed Zone Classification is also required. This allows the engineer to correctly access what foundations will be required to support the construction, and what structural bracing and engineering will be required for the building to withstand differing wind/storm events. Occasionally, underground services may need to be located using specialist contractors. These services include underground electrical cables, water pipes, gas lines, communication cables and sewer pipes. It is better to know at times where these items are early in the process and prior to designing structures that may be ‘bridging’ underground services and will require deep piers as part of the foundations, so the building does not ‘crush’ the services.

Alternatively, a copy of the survey plan may already be within your hands and is used to ‘site’ the building upon the property.

Design Development

In some cases, depending on the site constraints, we may need to await the survey prior to getting too deep into the design. In others, during the time these tasks are being carried out we will make a start on extracting that idea you have and getting it onto paper. This is known as ‘developing the design’. The design will start take shape, you will have a better understanding of the ‘spaces’, measurements, movement paths, airflows, sun paths, where the local predominate wind, rain and sun come from and how they affect your design. As we design in 3 dimensions, we can place some furniture and fittings into the plan to aid your understanding the scale and how the design will generally look and feel. We will provide both 2D and 3D images and walk you through the initial design thoughts. Only once you are happy with the direction of the design, will we move to the next stage. It is important that the design is meeting your expectations, this is quite often your home, or your workplace. Whilst we provide advice and explanation regarding technicalities and design elements, it is ultimately your desires and visions we are trying to develop, we are the guides on the path to the destination.

Approvals

Once you are happy with the general design the plans now move through a detailing process whereby, they are prepared for submission to your local government authorities for either Development Approval or Building Approval depending on the project. We will have received survey files, soil test results, wind speed assessments and basic engineering design. These are ‘applied’ to the design and checked for constraints, we need to ensure that the structural components either ‘fit’ within the design we have created, or amend the design to cater for the components. Occasionally when using a Certifier to lodge plans, they may ask for greater levels of detail and we may need to drift into the next stage a little to provide this. It makes no difference to the overall process; it just sometimes blurs the lines between the stages as listed here.

Working Drawings

Yes, who could have known there was such a long process behind a simple set of plans.

Whilst the plans are with the relevant authorities during the approval period, we are diligently adding even further technical detail to prepare the plans for the construction phase. This involves ensuring the building will meet the necessary building codes and standards and the engineering is finalised. Electrical and lighting plans are added. Your builder and contractors require these details to complete your project.

Specifications

Depending on your design service choices, we can work together to move beyond the standard set of plans and to add detailed specifications to the project. Many building designers leave this process to the builder. It involves selecting and specifying the actual materials, fittings and fixtures you wish to use on the project. For instance, a plan may show ‘weather boards’ on the exterior wall, however there are many different styles, sizes and finishes for ‘weatherboards’, alternatively it may be a ‘brick wall’ or rendered wall, the specification is ‘what’ brick and ‘what’ render finish (fine, medium, rough etc.).

Lights, fans, switches, taps, showers, shower screens, windows, glass, floor coverings, tiles, skirting boards, cornice, architraves, ovens, kitchens (another can of worms), decking boards, air conditioners, insulation, door handles, locks, door stops, towel rails, soap holders, toilet roll holders, laundry tubs, sinks, bench tops, baths etc. all need to be addressed. Most often a builder will have a ‘standard range’, which suits many people, and they don’t require specifications to be prepared.

There is a cost with preparing specifications, both financially and to a greater extent – your time invested visiting showrooms and looking through media, the benefit is once again – eyes wide open for all involved. It is inherently difficult sometimes to even get a quote from builders and contractors, let alone compare them effectively. Specifications not only remove these unknowns when comparing pricing, but allow builders and contractor to know exactly what it is your wishing for, resulting in a more accurate and comparable quote and less ‘surprises’ for the unwary.

Project Management

As licensed Builders we are also able to carry out Project Management services for your construction if desired. Whilst your builder will generally engage all your contractors directly, it can be of benefit to have a ‘third party’ to oversee the processes and carry out inspections. Sometimes it helpful to those less experienced with building and construction to have a channel for advice and ‘technical translations’ back into English available on call.