Before you invest in your next home, you deserve to understand what is possible.
A personal letter from Roger Borland, founder of Borland Architecture and author of Beyond the Floorplan.
You can spend years thinking about a home and still feel unsure how to begin.
You may know the area you want to live in, have a collection of images and a reasonable idea of what you can invest. Yet it can be surprisingly difficult to establish what that budget will achieve, whether your property is suitable and who you can trust to guide you.
The photographs help you identify what you like. They tell you much less about how a home feels through winter, how the owners found the building process or what it ultimately cost.
If you are preparing to commit a substantial part of your wealth and several years of your attention to a home, those questions deserve proper answers.
I’m Roger Borland. These are the conversations I want us to have before you commit to a design.
Sometimes, the most useful advice is to pause
Recently, I met a couple who wanted to demolish a property they owned and create a family holiday home. They had plenty of ideas and were looking forward to exploring the design.
But the existing house was heritage listed. They had largely overlooked how significantly that might affect their plans, including whether demolition would be possible at all.
My advice was to pause. Before investing in design, they needed formal advice from a heritage specialist, a conversation with council and a clearer understanding of what could be supported. I offered to connect them with the specialist and lead that process.
I hope it becomes a wonderful project. We may discover that the home they want cannot be achieved on that property. Either way, they deserve to understand their position before committing further.
That is how I see my role as a guide. The advice has to serve your interests, including when it means slowing down or reconsidering the direction.
The home you want deserves more than a good first impression
Imagine walking through a newly completed home. The joinery is finely crafted, the stone has character and the rooms open beautifully towards the garden. You can immediately appreciate the care that has gone into it.
Other qualities take longer to reveal themselves. You may discover that the bedroom becomes uncomfortable on hot nights, that television noise reaches the study or that keeping the house comfortable requires more energy and money than you expected. Over the years, you also learn which materials age well, what is difficult to maintain and whether the layout still suits your family.
These experiences shape how you feel about your home every day. Many of the decisions that influence them are made early in the design, when there is the greatest opportunity to get them right.
At Borland Architecture, we give equal attention to the architecture, the way you live, your comfort and health, the building’s performance and its long-term value to you and the environment. A home can be a pleasure to look at and a pleasure to occupy. We want the care you see in it to extend to the things you discover by living there.
Why I think in terms of a hundred years
I grew up on a farm in Ireland that has been in our family for four generations. That connection gives the idea of passing something on a very personal meaning for me. Since moving to Australia in 2006, longevity, resourcefulness and an appreciation for the land have continued to inform my work.
Building a home commits materials, energy, money and a piece of land to something that may remain long after we are gone. I find it difficult to separate that responsibility from the pleasure of designing it.
I want to create homes that people love enough to care for, that remain useful as life changes and that give future generations a reason to keep them.
That is the ambition behind the 100-Year Home.
It asks us to consider the life of the building when making decisions today. Some parts should endure for generations. Other parts, including equipment and finishes, will need maintenance or replacement. Thinking ahead means considering how that work can happen, as much as how the home will look when it is new.
It also means examining whether the space you build will earn its place in your life over time. Every additional room carries a construction cost, requires materials and creates something to heat, cool, clean and maintain. Sometimes that room is essential. Sometimes a better arrangement of the spaces you already need achieves more.
These decisions influence what a home costs to live in, how readily it can accommodate change and whether future owners will want to preserve it. Our responsibility extends to the people who will inherit the consequences of what we build.
How that thinking changes the design
Our approach draws together six fundamentals: Place, Life, Architecture, Health, Performance and Legacy. Together, they help us assess how an individual decision affects the whole home.
At our Ivanhoe East home, the slope of the land allowed us to create a discreet single-storey presence from the street, with two levels opening towards the pool and private garden at the rear. Understanding the site gave us an opportunity to bring privacy, family space and access to the outdoors together.
Understanding your life requires similar attention. A brief might ask for a study. We need to know whether it will accommodate occasional household administration or two people running separate businesses every day. We also need to consider how that use might change, because it affects the room’s location, privacy, acoustics and future usefulness.
Comfort brings another layer of responsibility. The size and position of windows affect views and daylight, alongside heat loss, summer heat and privacy. Insulation, airtightness, shading and ventilation need to work with the architecture from the outset.
My training as a Certified Passive House Designer informs that work. Passivhaus provides a rigorous basis for assessing predicted performance during design. Construction-stage checks, testing and commissioning can then verify specific aspects of the completed building. We explain which measures are included in your project and what they demonstrate.
Environmental care also influences what we build with and how much we use. We seek opportunities to use materials that store carbon, reduce the home’s energy demand and create landscapes that support biodiversity. We consider these choices alongside durability, maintenance, cost and the qualities you want to experience in your home.
There are trade-offs. You deserve to understand them and have a meaningful say in the decisions.
Does this mean spending more?
Some choices that improve comfort, durability or environmental performance carry a higher initial cost. Others involve using the budget more carefully, reducing unnecessary area or simplifying a form that would be expensive to construct.
Considering these choices early can create opportunities to offset additional expenditure elsewhere in the design. A simpler building form or a reduction in unnecessary floor area may release budget for better windows, insulation or ventilation. Whether those adjustments balance out needs to be tested through project-specific cost advice.
We also consider the costs that follow construction: energy, maintenance and eventual replacement. These deserve attention alongside the initial price, while recognising that you still have a budget to meet today.
Our responsibility is to help you establish priorities and make the implications visible. We involve a builder or quantity surveyor at appropriate stages for cost advice, so the developing design can be assessed against informed estimates.
If the scope exceeds the budget, we need to address it while there is still room to respond. You should understand what is driving the cost and what changing it would mean for the home.
The same openness applies to our appointment. Our proposal sets out the scope and fees so you can understand what you are engaging us to do. Construction-stage services are additional to the initial design fees, and we consider that ongoing involvement an essential part of carrying the design through to completion.
You should understand the process you are paying for
You may have a demanding career, children and little appetite for taking on a second job managing a building project.
Our role includes leading the architectural process, coordinating the relevant consultants and helping you navigate approvals, builder involvement and construction decisions. You remain involved in the choices that matter to you, with the information brought together so you can assess them.
We use three-dimensional models, material presentations and supplier visits where appropriate to help you understand the proposals. If something is unclear, we need to explain it in a way that makes sense to you.
I personally guide the early concept and schematic thinking, working with our team as the project develops. We want the brief to capture the things that matter to your family before design decisions become difficult or costly to revisit.
There will be questions we cannot answer immediately. Planning outcomes, specialist investigations and construction pricing all involve other people and further work. Part of good guidance is being clear about what we know, what remains uncertain and how we will investigate it.
Why I share so much of what we learn
I wrote Beyond the Floorplan because homeowners are asked to make consequential decisions with very little preparation.
Choosing a team, setting a brief and understanding what makes a home comfortable can be unfamiliar territory. I believe people should have access to useful guidance before they begin spending serious money.
That belief sits behind the book, our website’s Insights page and the questions I answer publicly. It is also part of a larger personal ambition: to help a million people live better through better homes.
Our practice will only ever design a small proportion of those homes. The knowledge we share can reach much further. It can help someone ask a better question, reconsider an unnecessary expense or recognise an issue before it becomes built into their home.
Our projects give that educational work substance. The questions clients bring us, the decisions we test and the lessons we learn all contribute to what we can explain to others.
You will live with the consequences of these decisions long after our work is complete. I want you to understand why we recommend them and feel comfortable questioning anything that is unclear.
Is our approach right for you?
We design substantial family homes in Melbourne and selected locations across Victoria.
Our preferred project scale is a total budget of $5 million or more. We also consider projects from $2.5 million where the location, scope and complexity suit our approach. These figures exclude land and include construction, architectural fees, other consultants, approvals and contingencies.
A shared commitment to thoughtful architecture, lasting comfort and long-term value matters to us. A bespoke architectural service is a significant investment, and the process should be rewarding as you discover what your site and your brief can become.
You may care deeply about architecture while feeling uncertain about the technical side. You may have strong ideas and want someone capable of questioning them thoughtfully. You should also expect clear explanations about costs and the decisions you are being asked to make.
You do not need to resolve those questions before speaking with us.
Let’s talk about what you have in mind
The Home Clarity Call is a complimentary 30-minute video conversation with me to discuss your initial ideas. There is no cost, no commitment to work with us and no expectation that you will make a decision during the call.
You do not need to prepare anything or have all the answers. You may have a property and plenty of ideas, or still be wondering where to begin. We can start wherever you are.
I will listen to what you hope to achieve, ask a few questions and help you identify what is worth exploring next. We can discuss your property, priorities, budget and timing, including anything you feel uncertain about. You are welcome to ask me questions too.
The purpose is to give you direction, so you can decide your next step with greater clarity and confidence. That might involve exploring a design, seeking specialist advice or taking more time to understand your options.
If there is an opportunity to work together, I would be pleased to explore it. You can take your time afterwards to consider whether you want to go further, without any pressure from us. Whatever you decide, our articles and insights will remain available to help you understand the process and make informed decisions.
A word about emails
When you book, your details will also be added to our mailing list. We share educational articles and practical answers to common questions about designing and building a home. Our aim is to provide useful guidance, whether or not you ever become a client.
Every email includes an unsubscribe link, so you can leave the list at any time.
Choose an available time that suits you below. I look forward to hearing what you have in mind.
Roger Borland
Founder, Borland Architecture
Author of Beyond the Floorplan