Melbourne · Independent journal · How ideas become buildings in Australia
Brief to drawing
A concept that cannot be priced, lodged or explained to a neighbour is not a concept. It is a mood. This hub is about the first decisions — brief, massing, climate, reuse, planning path — that decide whether a job is still itself on the day it is built.
Image: Historic American Engineering Record. Public domain. See the image credits.
Concept design
A concept brief is not a mood. It is a document an estimator can read, risk, and return as a number. Write rooms, performance and exclusions so the price is about the house, not the gaps.
Elena Markovic · 17 September 2026
Concept design
A concept is ready to lodge when a planner can test setbacks, overlays and neighbour amenity against a drawing that will still be the building. Pretty diagrams fail at council because they do not survive that test.
Elena Markovic · 20 August 2026
Concept design
Most of a suburban house's cost is fixed before anyone chooses a tap. Structure, span, wet areas, excavation, glass, roof and services do the locking. The rest is negotiation at the edges.
Elena Markovic · 13 July 2026
Concept design
Keeping an old building is a structural, fire and contamination decision before it is an aesthetic one. Reuse is cheaper when the fabric already does the work. It is theatre when the fabric is only asked to look as if it did.
Elena Markovic · 8 June 2026
Concept design
A view is a luxury a house can hold. Climate is the brief the house cannot refuse. Orientation, eaves, mass, air and the NCC decide whether the view is still pleasant in February and July.
Elena Markovic · 4 May 2026