Taking the agreed concept to the level of resolution the approvals need.
This is the quiet part. The concept was approved a few weeks ago, the emails have thinned out, and the drawings that do arrive look worse than the ones you fell in love with — greyer, covered in dimensions, no pretty views. It is easy to read that as the project losing momentum.
It is the opposite. Design development is where the idea gets proved buildable. Levels get checked against the survey, the roof geometry gets resolved so the gutters actually fall somewhere, the structure gets considered properly, and the drainage gets a route. Consultants start work and their outputs have to be reconciled against each other and against the design.
Almost none of that produces something nice to look at, and all of it is cheaper to get wrong now than later. A problem found at this stage costs an afternoon. The same problem found on site costs a beam through the middle of the window that made the room work.
Sometimes the architect really is slow. Ask for the programme in writing — a good one will send it without flinching.
Design development is where a good idea is proved buildable. Structure, levels, drainage, roof geometry and constructability are resolved now, on paper, where a problem costs an afternoon rather than a demolition.
Reassurance that the beautiful thing is real, not a rendering. Clients get quieter through this stage as the drawings become more technical — which reads as the project getting more serious rather than less exciting.
The concept goes almost straight to a builder. Structure gets resolved on site by whoever is standing there, usually in the cheapest available way, and the result is a beam through the window that made the room work.
This is the least visible stage and the hardest one to feel progress in. The drawings get more technical and less beautiful, and people often go quiet through it. What is happening is that structure, levels, drainage and roof geometry are being resolved on paper, where a problem costs an afternoon rather than a demolition. The stages that feel like they are taking too long are almost always the ones preventing a much longer delay later. This is the clearest example of that.
It is the stage where the agreed concept is taken to the level of resolution the approvals and the engineering need. Under the standard Client Architect Agreement it covers developing the approved concept, coordinating the specialist consultants, preparing a schedule of proposed materials and finishes, reviewing the design against the budget with an updated cost forecast, and meeting relevant authorities about the developed design. In practice it is the stage where the house stops being an idea and starts being a set of decisions that other people can act on.
On a typical Brisbane house I allow around four weeks for the design work itself, and then the approval timeline sits on top of it, which is the part nobody can promise. Two things stretch it more than anything else: waiting on a consultant, and waiting on a decision from you. A survey that hasn't been ordered stops the engineer, and the engineer stops everything downstream. If you want it to move quickly, the lever you actually control is your own turnaround time.
Sometimes because the work genuinely is slow and invisible — coordination, consultant chasing and approval preparation produce very little you can see. Sometimes because your job is queued behind another one. Both are worth asking about directly. A reasonable architect will give you a written programme with dates against deliverables, and tell you what they are waiting on and from whom. If you can't get that, you have learned something. The stages that feel like they are taking too long are usually the ones preventing a much longer delay later — but that is an explanation, not a blank cheque.
You can ask, and I would rather you did than sat there wondering. Be prepared for them to be unfinished and a bit unlovely — half-dimensioned, with notes to myself all over them and options still open. Looking at work in progress sometimes prompts a useful question and sometimes just creates anxiety about something that was always going to be resolved next Tuesday. What is more useful is a fortnightly note on where things are, even when the honest content is that nothing has changed.
Coordination, mostly, and the resolution of everything the concept deferred. On a fixed-fee-per-stage basis design development is usually a smaller share of the total than either concept or documentation — around a sixth on my projects — for work that is disproportionately responsible for the build going smoothly. Ask what the deliverables at the end of the stage are and what has to be true before it can close. That gives you something concrete to measure progress against instead of a feeling.
If you would rather start small, the First Sketch Session is two hours at your place. You keep the sketches, and there is no obligation afterwards.