My $0.02 - in NSW designers are NOT registered or accredited, beware. All architects are nationally accredited. I suggest that there are a lot of things you can do yourself before you start - get a proper survey of your block, ensure that you get them to provide angles for anything that isn't square....understand if there are utilities like sewer pipes which will affect your setbacks or useable space...... Go online and workout the sun angles for your longitude and latitude helpful for solar and overall layouts. West facing picture windows are not the best. Some of the solar firms have online calculators which help to do this. Read the local council rules and understand them, apply them to your survey and your design ideas....including if you are a corner block and if you want to go two storey...... If it is still a 'go' Get all of the heritage, flood, fire etc checks done by council - around $150 depending on council........ Eliminate or at least understand all the big constraints before you go any further........ Look again at the survey- any contour lines may cost you money, assume a cost of at least $2000 per sqm to start and do some layouts of your ideas on paper, add up all of the spaces, can you actually put them on your block? How much is the total?.......yes garages are slightly cheaper to build but still take up precious footprint space.... Is access likely to cause issues for trades, equipment and deliveries?......... Keep refining and updating the ideas and plans thinking about how you want to use the spaces and move around inside and out.....where are you putting the wheelie bins, clothes dryer etc..... Try the free to use BASIX site forms if you are in NSW, understand how the size, shading and orientation of windows affects your sustainability and adjust, this will also apply many of the local council rules as well..... Do you want a brick house, with render? A pole home, a kit build? A fast build insulated panel build? What type of roof?...... The more you have worked out for yourself the better, look at the kit home options, there are lots and some are very good... Everything is delivered and you just construct with the trades and some may have builders in your area.....The new InsulLiving Code Mark BCA approved options are also worth a look..... Anyway do all of that before you line up for the fleecing floor lol

I don't know why people keep referring to these fad-driven green walls as sustainable - they are not. Green walls are completely unsustainable, when you consider what sustainabity really means. They are nothing but a Frenchman's idea that he pushed heavily to the landscaping industry that is now being touted as an environmental solution to housing insulation. They are actually useless in areas of high heat, especially when accompanied by high wind and low humidity. Most cities in Australia are not suitable because buildings are too exposed to the elements. Trees are actually required to increase shade to the buildings and the walls, and to increase evapotranspiration - hence the green walls are entirely useless. Of course they will cause fires when the plants die - they are entirely unnatural and won't last.

And in regard to retaining emotional ties - I disagree - respectfully. Our longstanding experience is that built fabric of places is important in shared memory. Often this is partly why there is resistance to change. Not entirely of course, but a factor. Further our experience is very positive & specific feedback in a variety of other projects where significant elements of place are retained & re-used (be it built or within the landscape). I agree the example above has imperfection. We always strive for the best; but can't always control every element. In this project such things as cladding selection & colour strategy & landscape edge conditions at the boundary carefully detailed & worked out, as part of the whole scaling strategy, were ignored in the building process. Again - a lesson. If you engage an expert & pay them for their expertise why wouldn't you execute their plan? My old teacher used to say "why buy a dog if you plan to do your own barking?" And yes: 1 home in 3 parts around a private internal courtyard.

This next two months we have so much on here in NZ that we've pushed our Aus business launch to 1 May , but the intention is we will be based at this apartment for about 3 weeks in May , then we'll see . So far we have already done a lot of touristy things , done the ferries several times , the trains , etc . We've bought a car too -- no idea what will happen to that if my cousin/aunty start pushing to sell the unit , but at this stage I've paid all these bills , except the kitchen ( my cousin had already paid that ) and I've also transferred them 'a loan' , so it seems likely we'll all have this unit for at least 18 months , and then we'll review things , as a family , if that makes sense . So basically we'll be honorary Orstralians soon cobber . . . . . . . .