Residential building design across Sydney
Renovations, extensions, alterations and new homes. Most of what we do is reimagining homes that people already own and have no intention of leaving — making them open up, work harder, and hold a good deal more life than they are currently capable of.
Greg has been designing homes since 1998, across most Sydney councils and a long way past them. The practice is based in the Inner West and a good deal of the work is close to home, but there are projects on the North Shore, Eastern Suburbs, in the Shire, out through the Hills district, down the South Coast, and further afield again through regional NSW, interstate and overseas.
Drawings your builder can build from
This is the part nobody thinks to ask about until something has already gone wrong on site.
A design is only ever as good as the drawings that describe it. Where documentation is thin, a builder has to price the gaps as risk rather than pricing the actual work, and you end up paying for that guesswork twice — once in the original quote, and then again in variations when the detail finally gets resolved with the tradies standing in front of it.
We'd rather sort it out beforehand. The drawings you get are detailed enough that a builder can price them properly and work from them without ringing you every other week, which makes tenders worth comparing and takes a good deal of the friction out of the build.
"Greg and I have worked together on several renovations. From my point of view — the builder — it's great to know that what he designs will be buildable. One of Greg's strengths is his ability to bring a client's vision to life through clever design."
Want to have a chat? Call Greg on 0412 013 627.
The kind of work we take on
- Rear extensions and additions — usually opening the back of a house up to light and whatever garden there is
- Whole-house renovations — making it all work together
- Pavilion-style additions — mostly associated with heritage properties, the new work is almost a separate building.
- Second storeys and first-floor additions
- New homes, from a grand scale home to homes on terrace and narrow lots
- Alterations to heritage items and houses in conservation areas, which have their own set of rules — there's more on that over on the heritage page
A lot of our work is kept behind existing streetscapes. These two below are both additions to houses, and both have similar principles: allow the original home to do its job from the street, and let the new work be of its own time rather than an imitation of what it is attached to.
Terraces and narrow blocks
Terraces are a particular interest of Greg's. There are physical limits in every direction: party walls, narrow frontages, limited opportunities for light reaching the middle of the home, and a rear that more often than not faces the wrong way. There isn't the luxury to be wasteful of space, so every decision has to earn its place — which is exactly what makes them satisfying to work on.
"We had a very tired, dated terrace that needed front to back updating and reconfiguring… Previously the entire back kitchen area was dark and gloomy with a low ceiling, now we have light streaming in with a raised ceiling to the eaves."
When the block itself is the hard part
Some sites present with more obstacles. Steep slope, awkward orientation, a heritage listing next door, foreshore controls, biodiversity constraints, large trees, or a set of council controls that between them seem to rule out anything worth doing.
Plenty of the homes we work on sit on perfectly ordinary blocks, but when a site does throw something awkward at you — and around the Inner West it usually does — these can be an interesting design opportunity.
It makes a difference to be working with someone who can think outside the box, who knows which points are worth arguing with council and which ones aren't. Sydney homes often come with size constraints, the smallest we've worked on was a 68 m² site but we were still able to give them a comfortable, well-lit home.
If you've never done this before
Most of the people we work with haven't renovated before. There's a lot about the process that nobody explains until you're already in the middle of it, and we'd rather you weren't finding it out the hard/expensive way.
It usually starts with a phone call. No charge and no obligation — just a conversation about your home, what's prompting the enquiry, and whether it's the sort of thing we'd be able to help you with. If it sounds like it is, Greg will make a time to come out and look at the property with you and discuss your needs. There's no substitute for standing in the rooms: where the light gets to in the afternoon, where the noise comes from, which parts of your home get the most use and how the home flows.
After that it's mostly listening. What you need your home to do, what you've always wished it had, what you're willing to spend and what you'd rather leave alone. Some of that you'll have been turning over in your mind for years. Some of it comes out for the first time standing in the back yard talking to someone who's genuinely interested.
From there you stay part of it. You'll see ideas while they're still forming rather than being presented with a finished scheme and asked what you think, which means there's room to say "not that, I'd prefer this".
"As a novice renovator, I engaged Greg to help me navigate through the design and build phases of the project… this helped me to evolve my requirements and budget for the renovation."
Where we work
Greg works out of Dulwich Hill, and a good deal of the work is close to home — Summer Hill, Enmore, St Peters, Marrickville, Erskineville, Lewisham, Hurlstone Park, Annandale, Lilyfield, Leichhardt, Rozelle and Balmain.
Plenty of it isn't, though. Recently there has been a cluster of projects up in Roseville and some substantial projects in Mosman, along with work elsewhere on the North Shore, Sutherland Shire, out at West Pennant Hills and Baulkham Hills, down at Huskisson on the South Coast, and a rural subdivision in Camden. Further afield again, Greg has worked throughout regional NSW, interstate, and on an infrastructure project in Fiji.
FAQs - renovating and extending
Q01How long does the whole thing take?
Longer than most people expect, and the design is rarely the slow part. Concept through to construction drawings, coordination of consultants, is usually a matter of months rather than weeks, and then council has its own timetable on top. Building work follows after that. It is worth knowing early that a renovation is measured in seasons, because the people who struggle most are the ones who budgeted a few weeks for the paperwork.
Q02Do I need a designer or a builder first?
A designer, in almost every case. A builder can only price what is in front of them, so going to one with a vague idea produces a vague number that tends to move later. Getting the design and the documentation right first means every builder you approach is pricing the same thing, which is the only way a quote comparison means anything.
Q03Do you handle the council application as well?
Yes. We prepare the design and the documentation that supports it, lodge what needs lodging, and handle council's questions as they come back rather than forwarding them on for you to interpret. We also coordinate and recommend required consultants, and we will tell you early which ones your job needs.
Q04Can I use my own builder?
Of course. Plenty of people come to us with a builder already in mind, often someone a friend used. The documentation is written to be built from by whoever you choose, which is the point of doing it properly. If you do not have anyone, Greg has worked alongside a lot of builders over the years and is happy to talk through what to look for.
Q05Why not just use a design-and-build company?
The main difference is who the designer is working for. With a design-and-build company, the same business drawing your plans also makes money from construction — which means design decisions are quietly shaped by what is easiest or most profitable to build, not what best fits your brief. With Greg, the two things are separate. When the drawings are done, they belong to you, and you can get competitive prices from multiple builders rather than accepting the one number a combined company gives you.
Q06What is the difference between a building designer and an architect?
For most residential alterations, additions and new homes, the work is the same — concept design, council approval, and construction drawings a builder can price and build from.
Cost is another key difference with most architects charging a percentage of costs, based on their own industry figures, that normally don't reflect your end cost — budget goes up, so does their fee.
Karmatecture is a fixed-fee building design practice — we work to keep budget in control.
Greg is a member of the Building Designers Association of Australia and carries current professional indemnity insurance. He studied Architecture at UTS and has a B.A.Arch., and a B.Arch.
Q07Do we have to move out while the work happens?
It depends on the job, and it is worth raising early because it changes the design. Some renovations can be staged so you keep a kitchen and a bathroom through most of it. Others, particularly anything that takes the roof off or moves the services, are miserable to live through. We would rather build that into the thinking than have it come as a surprise once the drawings are done.
Q08What if I do not really know what I want yet?
That is the normal starting point, and it is not a problem. Most of the first conversation is about how you actually use the house now — which rooms everyone ends up in, which ones get walked past, what you have always wished it had. Ideas get shown to you while they are still forming rather than presented finished, so there is room to say "not that" while saying it is still easy.
Q09Can you work to a budget I have already set?
Yes, and telling us the real number early helps more than anything else you can do. A budget is a design constraint like a boundary setback or a north aspect, and it is far easier to design to one from the start than to strip a scheme back after everyone has fallen in love with it. The hardest part can be understanding that your budget may not allow you to have all of your 'dream list' and that working out your priorities is essential.