The design brief

What it contains

Functions and sizes

Which rooms, how large, how related to one another, how many people use them.

Quality expectations

The part most often left out — and where much of the cost is decided:

• what finishes,
• what sound insulation is expected between rooms and between dwellings,
• what floor feel is acceptable, Serviceability criteria,
• what energy level is the aim beyond the minimum,
• what comfort from the services.

Budget

A realistic order of magnitude for the design to work to.

Programme

When the permit is needed, when construction starts, whether there is a fixed completion date.

Constraints

Site conditions, regulations, existing structures, owners’ expectations.

Why it has to be in writing

Because an expectation stated verbally becomes a question of memory later. A written brief:

• gives the design direction,
• is the reference point for decisions,
• makes clear what changed when something changes,
• clarifies what the appointment was in a dispute.

When the client does not know what they want

Entirely normal: a client does not necessarily know in advance what level of sound insulation they want. The designer’s job is then to help with questions — and to record the answers.

A good design brief is often produced in the first stage of the design, not before it.

The light gauge steel angle

With this technology the quality expectations matter particularly, because the build-up is tunable: the same structure with a different build-up gives a different acoustic and vibration result.

If we do not know the expectation, we design to the minimum — and the occupant will notice.

The point

The design brief is not bureaucracy but the compass of the project. Most “this is not what I expected” sentences sit on a missing or unwritten brief.