What to Research Before Designing Your Home
Where do you start when you do not yet know what you want?
You may be years away from building, or already saving hundreds of images and wondering why they do not add up to a coherent home. Research can help, but only if it improves the questions you ask. Collecting more images is not the same as understanding what you need.
Before drawing a floor plan, research your life, site, budget and the principles behind the spaces you admire.
1. Start with the life you live
It is easy to confuse what we need with what we have repeatedly seen. A butler’s pantry, second living room or enormous walk-in robe can begin to feel essential simply because it appears in every display home and social media feed.
Start closer to home. Notice where ordinary life catches: the school bags without a place, the glare that makes one room unusable, the kitchen traffic jam, the relative who cannot stay comfortably, or the quiet space nobody can find.
Also notice what already works. A good brief should preserve the rituals and relationships you value, not merely list rooms.
Use what you own as evidence
Many clients initially believe they need considerably more storage or floor area. I am not a hard-line minimalist, but I do think it is worth understanding what you use, value and want to carry into the next chapter before designing cupboards around everything you have ever acquired.
Thoughtful decluttering can reveal whether the problem is genuinely insufficient space, poorly located storage, or a home that makes everyday tasks harder than they need to be. Well-designed storage should support the life you want, not hide an unresolved brief.
Write a brief before drawing solutions
A useful brief describes people, priorities, routines, frustrations, future changes, budget and the outcome you hope the project will create. It does not need to prescribe the plan.
Our article How to Brief Your Architect includes practical questions that help turn scattered ideas into a clearer starting point:
https://www.whiskerarchitecture.com/architecture-articles/how-to-brief-your-architect
2. Learn how your site and climate work
A design that succeeds on one property may fail on another. Orientation, neighbouring buildings, vegetation, slope, access, planning controls, bushfire risk, existing structure and services all shape what is sensible.
Researching these conditions does not mean designing the answer yourself. It helps you understand why the answer must be specific to your site.
In Melbourne and much of Victoria, questions about northern light, summer shading, cold winds, glazing and thermal performance should be considered from the beginning, not applied as decoration after the plan is settled.
Undercover Architect
During lockdown I briefly considered starting a podcast to release all the architectural information in my head into the world. Amelia Lee had already beaten me to it by many seasons, and had done it very well.
Undercover Architect is an Australian resource for homeowners planning a renovation or new home. Its “Start Here” material is particularly useful if you are unsure which professional to speak with first or what to prepare.
https://undercoverarchitect.com/podcast-start-here-before-you-talk-to-builders-designers/
Your Home
Your Home is an Australian Government guide to environmentally sustainable homes. It explains orientation, passive heating and cooling, shading, insulation, glazing, water, energy and accessibility in Australian conditions.
It also includes free Design For Place house plans. I would treat them as educational examples rather than a substitute for a design responding to your site and life.
3. Understand the full project budget
Research the difference between construction cost and total project cost. Consultant fees, permits, investigations, demolition, temporary accommodation, landscaping, furniture, finance, escalation and contingency can all sit outside an early builder figure.
A rough number can be useful as a conversation starter, but it is not a complete budget. Our article on early builder estimates explains why the assumptions behind a number matter:
4. Study principles, not styles
I once visited an award-winning home from the 1970s that remained genuinely beautiful decades later. It did not survive because nobody’s taste changed. It survived because the underlying decisions were thoughtful: proportion, light, material, relationship to landscape and rooms that still supported daily life.
The most sustainable home may be the one that remains useful and loved for long enough that future owners feel reluctant to dismantle it. These are legacy pieces, closer to jewellery handed between generations than disposable fashion.
Style is not irrelevant. It simply works better when it grows from durable ideas rather than being asked to carry the whole design.
Turn saved images into useful observations
Pinterest, Instagram, Houzz and magazines can help, but a folder containing hundreds of unrelated rooms is difficult to design from.
For every image you keep, write down what you actually like. Is it the light, colour, material, ceiling height, connection to the garden, sense of calm, or the way furniture creates smaller zones within a room?
Look for repeated ideas. Those patterns are more useful than labels such as “modern”, “timeless” or “coastal”, which can mean something different to everyone.
99% Invisible: McMansion Hell
The 99% Invisible episode “McMansion Hell: The Devil Is in the Details” is an entertaining way to learn why more size and more features do not automatically create a better home.
It looks at proportion, rooflines, windows, circulation and the difference between a collection of expensive elements and a coherent building. The episode is American, but the design lesson travels well.
https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/mcmansion-hell-devil-details/
Green Magazine
Green Magazine remains one of the better Australian sources for completed homes, gardens and sustainable design. Use project stories to study how architecture responds to climate, existing buildings, landscape and changing family needs.
Glossy photography is still selective, of course. Ask what each project teaches beyond its finishes.
Good research should not make you feel responsible for designing the house before you meet an architect. It should help you recognise your priorities, ask sharper questions and make decisions with more confidence.
Our Home Masterplan Report brings the brief, site constraints, strategic options and early cost information together before you commit to a design direction.
Learn more about the Home Masterplan Report:
