Your Investment in Design — Synergy Building Design

People. Function. Place.

The case for
getting design right.

A home is the most personal thing most people will ever build or change. It is where life happens — where families grow, where mornings begin, where people come to rest. Getting it right matters in ways that go well beyond the drawings.

Good design starts with people. Before a floor plan is drawn or a material is chosen, we need to understand how you actually live. The way your household moves through a morning. How you gather, how you work, how you entertain. The things that have always frustrated you about the homes you have lived in and the things you have always wanted. Design that ignores this produces beautiful photographs. Design that gets it right produces a home you will never want to leave.

Function is the discipline that sits beneath every good design decision. A room that looks extraordinary but does not work for the people in it has failed, regardless of how it photographs. The homes we are most proud of are the ones where every decision was made in service of how the home would actually be used.

Place is what connects your home to the land it sits on. Every site has something to offer and something to demand. A home that responds to its place feels inevitable. One that ignores it always feels like it could have been built anywhere.

People

Design begins with understanding how you actually live — not how you think you should.

Function

Every decision is made in service of how the home will be used, every day.

Place

A home that responds to where it sits feels inevitable. One that ignores it never quite does.

How we work

Four phases.
One resolved outcome.

Every project at Synergy follows the same four-phase process. Not because it is the only way to design a home, but because it is the best way. Each phase builds on the last, nothing gets skipped, and you always know exactly where you are and what comes next.

Pre-Design

Before anything is drawn, we listen and we look. We visit your site, assess what it offers and what it demands, and work with you to sharpen the brief. Most clients are surprised by how much this phase changes and improves what they originally had in mind.

Design

Working from the brief, we develop the layout, form, and design direction of your home. Floor plans, elevations, 3D perspectives, material directions, and interior thinking. By the end of this phase you will be able to see, feel, and walk through your home before it is built.

Document

With the design resolved, we translate it into a complete set of technical drawings. Coordinated, compliant, and ready for approval and construction. Every detail gets resolved. Nothing goes to a builder that is not ready.

Deliver

Available at hourly rates for clients who want us close during construction. The difference between a home that gets built, and a home that gets built the way it was designed.

Your investment

Transparent, structured,
and tied to your project.

How fees are calculated

Our fees are structured as a lump sum for each phase of the project. Each stage fee is calculated based on the scope of work, the size and complexity of the project, and what is required to deliver that phase completely and well.

You will always know the full stage fee before work begins. There are no surprises mid-phase.

What drives the fee

The two biggest factors in any fee calculation are scope and complexity. A compact new home on a straightforward site is a different calculation to a large home on a difficult sloping block with complex planning considerations.

We assess each project individually and the fee reflects what the project actually requires, not a generic rate applied across the board.

The hourly rate

Our hourly rate applies when scope changes beyond what was agreed in the original proposal, when meetings run beyond the stage allocation, or when responding to ongoing queries from builders, consultants, or certifiers during and after the documentation stage.

Where the hourly rate applies, we will always let you know before the clock starts.

What is not included

Our design fee covers the work Synergy provides directly. External consultant fees — surveyors, structural engineers, energy assessors, hydraulic engineers, building certifiers, and others — are separate costs that sit outside our scope.

Council application fees and statutory charges are also separate. We set all of this out clearly at the proposal stage so you understand the full picture before you commit to anything.

A useful reference point — guide only

7 to 8% of your expected construction budget.

As a general guide, the total design investment for a well-resolved residential project typically sits in the range of 7 to 8% of the expected construction budget. This figure is inclusive of expected external consultant fees — surveyors, engineers, energy assessors, certifiers, and others depending on your project.

This is a planning guide, not a quote. Every project is different and your specific fee will be set out clearly in your design proposal. We share this range so you can think about the investment in context before we sit down together — not to lock in a number before we understand your project properly.

The right relationship

The projects we do
our best work on.

Two decades and hundreds of projects have taught us a lot about what makes a project go well. The quality of the design matters. The quality of the process matters. But more than either of those, the quality of the relationship matters.

The projects we are most proud of have one thing in common. Clients who were genuinely invested in the outcome — who brought their thinking to every meeting, made decisions when they were needed, and trusted the process even when it felt uncertain. That partnership is what great design comes from.

Budget matters on every project and we take it seriously. What we have found over two decades is that the projects which go best are the ones where budget is an important consideration, but not the only one. When the conversation is dominated by cost from the very beginning, it tends to stay there — and that makes it harder to do the work we are genuinely proud of. We would rather be honest about that now than have either of us discover it later.

If you are looking for a practice that will design something that lasts — something that improves your daily life, reflects how you actually live, and responds to where it sits — we think you will find Synergy is the right fit.

We will see you soon

Here is what
to expect next.

You have already taken the next step and we are looking forward to sitting down with you. This document was intended to give you a clear picture of how we work and what the investment looks like before we meet — so that conversation can focus on what matters most: your project.

Come ready to talk about how you live, what you love, and what you are hoping to achieve. The more you bring to that conversation, the further we go.

In the meantime, if anything in this document has raised a question, please just ask. We would rather answer it now than have it sitting in the back of your mind when we meet.

1300 133 125

hello@synergybd.com.au

synergybd.com.au

What is gooddesign actuallyworth?

The case forgetting design right.

Four phases.One resolved outcome.

Transparent, structured,and tied to your project.

The projects we doour best work on.

Here is whatto expect next.

What is good
design actually
worth?

The case for
getting design right.

Four phases.
One resolved outcome.

Transparent, structured,
and tied to your project.

The projects we do
our best work on.

Here is what
to expect next.