Hi celfoote, My friend Tony Beattie is a long term resident in Erskineville and very good architect. Allow 10% of your budget for the careful, comprehensive and considered planning of an architect. Tony is a brilliant architect. http://beattieco.com.au/

I was about your age when I decided the same thing! My tip is from experience, you will travel a very windy road with plenty of creative stop offs along the way to becoming an architect. Creativity is the single most important tool you poses second only to the confidence to achieve it. Dabble in design across as many ways possible, architecture is about responding entirely to your client, their.site, their brief and budget. Having a well rounded appreciation of design, art, travel and culture will come in very handy in interpreting and inspiring your clients. It's an easy world to fall in love with, it certainly is a dream job, and their are many faces you may take on. Start dabbling with drawing technology, starting with a freebie, google sketchup. It is easy to learn via YouTube tutorials, you can create and learn about scale, proportion, how to interpret 3d into 2 dimensional images and visa versa. You can create realistic images, or renderings with lights, textures and landscape, all of which an architect would undertake. You may work in architecture across interiors, building, landscape or as our own design expert! Knowing what you want to do, is the first step. Many your age still have no idea, and who knows, you may too change your path a few times, but architecture is in the soul, so I'm sure you'll get there! Good luck.

Many people make the same mistake that believing an architect will give them something special (or perhaps 'smart' as you noted). Wrong. Many say a draftsman will only design what you tell them. Wrong. Unfortunately the problem is with the poor choice by the homeowner. I've seen terrific work all designed by draftsman and absolutely poor work designed by architects. I've also seen rubbish by draftsman and stunning work by architects. But, is the final design the only reason of what the decision should be based? Absolutely not! No use having a great design that you can't afford to build or is difficult and frustrating to have approved by council amongst other things. It's like choosing any one to do specialist for you; can you talk with them easily about your ideas and not feel 'railroaded', do they give advice freely without feeling like they're not telling you the whole story, do they mention budgets, possible problems along the way, have they investigated site specific issues, etc..... Architects aren't greedy and just wanting more money, they provide a larger range of services that others don't. If you're a developer would you go to the local draftsman and tell him how to design a high-rise project for Melbourne's CBD..... of course not you'd go to an architect to look after the project for you. Just as you wouldn't go to a world renowned award winning architect to design a timber rear deck area that the local builder is going build.... Know what each professional provides and decide from there don't base it on a qualification only.

The bigger and more complex the project, the more you'll need the services of an architect. The architect should be doing the lot from the very start to the end when you get handed the keys to the finished project. The client only liases with the architect and they do everything on your behalf. If you only require design and plans, etc for approvals and your builder is very good then using a building designer or draftsman is more than sufficient. They need to be able to design well in this day and age otherwise it could be non compliant with thermal requirements, planning regulations getting tighter, etc.. The days of you telling the draftsman what to draw because they don't know how to design are long gone. Experiance with projects comparable to yours is what is needed. Choose the one that suits your project rather than the piece of paper with their qualification written on it.