Residential architecture design is one of the most demanding areas of architecture. And essentially satisfying.

Everything about it is personal. For many clients its one of those crucial occasions when they fundamentally take stock of their lives and work out what they are really aiming at in their personal lives. How many children, how they would like to live, what are their long term housing needs.

+ Getting the work is the start. To some degree this has been the easiest bit although the early years were tough, at least until there were a number of built works that proved the claims of the level of architectural skill could be substantiated.

+ There’s a high level of architectural judgement required in mediating the ideals and aspirations of the clients with the real life budgets and other constraints. And there are plenty of constraints: budget, site size, slope and orientation, neighbours, neighbouring building and private open space context, heritage, planning regulations, building regulations, easements and covenants, existing building being retained etc.

+ There’s the design process of creating something out of a huge list of usually conflicting practical requirements where the clients themselves are not always in agreement as to how they would like to live.

+ In the inner city there is the task of arguing for planning approval with the local authority, often with inexperienced planning officers who are often uncertain about the complex raft of policies they are supposed to be administering. Council Heritage advisors, who can be considerably more experienced, often work to another agenda. Detail has had considerable success in getting submitted plans approved with minimal changes but the level of uncertainty and time delays are frustrating for clients and for business workflow as well. The skill and energy required to argue that the proposed design complies with the planning scheme is the toughest demand on the architect in my view.

+ Finding reliable builders interested in even pricing a job has been difficult in a time of unprecedented demand on skilled builders. Registration and insurance requirements has made it difficult for new builders to enter the industry and consumer expectations have risen sharply, sometimes beyond what is reasonable to deliver.

+ The receipt of builder’s pricing in a period of high building industry inflation has sometimes resulted in the necessity to prune a design. With planning delays there can be 2 years between the initial design meeting and the signing of a contract. Prices, particularly for subcontractors and materials, can have escalated considerably in that time.

+ Administering a contract between the builder and client during the construction period is the other major demand on any housing project. There’s large amounts of money at stake. People can make mistakes. Renovating can bring surprises: termites, soil conditions, substandard underlying structure.

+ The time taken to run domestic projects from start to finish in the inner city has few parallels in other professions. One Detail job was initiated in November 2002 and concluded in September 2008. Another has run from June 2004 and will be finished for Christmas this year. Even simple jobs can take 2 years to complete, primarily due to regulatory requirements and the general inertia of the industry. Typically there are weekly site meetings for quality control and to resolve any issues and daily phone calls for much of the period.

Detail was set up in August 1994. Its been a giant roller coaster, a lot of fun and every day has been interesting and challenging.

But its time for a break. Of long service leave proportions.

I guess it’s a mid life crisis: just without the sports car.

Graeme