Context & Content with Griff Morris of Solar Dwellings

After consulting a few builders and architects we decided to engage Solar Dwellings to design our home. Our decision was motivated by two main factors:

1. Solar Dwellings' focus on sustainable house design.
2. Their estimated building cost best matched our budget.

We prepared a Context & Content brief detailing our requirements on a room-by-room basis as well as at a higher level, for example, energy- and water-efficiency. We also included images of front elevations that we liked the look of.

We then spent a few hours with Solar Dwellings' Griff Morris going through the brief clarifying various details. This also provided Griff with the information necessary to calculate a more accurate cost-estimate. This was quite close to the rough estimate he calculated at our initial consultation. Griff estimated that the home would occupy approximately 270m² with a base building cost of around $A500,000.

Griff told us it would take four to five weeks to draft an initial concept plan. This would involve Griff making a site visit and clarifying elements of Mosman Park's residential building codes as they apply to our lot.