Architectural drafting, drawn by people who build.

Most drafting problems don't show up at the drawing stage. They show up four months later — when council asks for more information, when three builders return three wildly different prices, or when the frame is up and nobody can find the detail that explains how two materials are supposed to meet.

We draft for approval and for construction. Our background is building, not just design, which means the documentation is prepared with the site in mind: buildable, internally consistent, and detailed enough that a builder can price it without padding the quote to cover ambiguity.

First: do you need a planning permit, a building permit, or both?

This is the single most common point of confusion, and getting it wrong costs months. They are not two names for the same thing. They are two separate approvals, assessed by two different people, against two different rulebooks.

• Planning permit — assessed by your council, against the planning scheme: the zone, any overlays, and the ResCode standards at Clause 54 (single dwellings) or Clause 55 (two or more dwellings). It asks whether the project suits the site and the neighbourhood.
• Building permit — issued by a registered building surveyor, against the National Construction Code and the Victorian building regulations. It asks whether the building is sound, safe and compliant.

Plenty of projects never need a planning permit at all — they're "as-of-right" and go straight to a building permit. Anything involving building work needs a building permit. Where both apply, planning has to be resolved first, because the endorsed planning drawings become the foundation of the working drawings.

What's actually in each drawing set

Ask three firms what you get and you'll often hear "plans, elevations and sections" three times. That isn't an answer — those words appear in every stage, and the stages are not the same drawings at increasing levels of polish. They answer different questions for different assessors.

Here is what each set genuinely contains, and — just as importantly — what each one can't do for you.

The overlays are what quietly add cost

Two identical houses on two identical blocks can have very different approval paths, because of what sits over the title. Overlays are the most common reason a project's budget and program drift after it starts.

• Bushfire Management Overlay — triggers a bushfire assessment (BAL rating) and often a bushfire management statement.
• Heritage Overlay — triggers a heritage response, and usually constrains what you can do to the street-facing form.
• Significant Landscape / Vegetation Protection — may trigger an arborist report and limit removal.
• Land Subject to Inundation / Special Building — brings floor-level and drainage constraints, and a referral authority such as Melbourne Water.
• Design and Development — sets height, setback and built-form controls specific to that pocket.

You can check this yourself in about two minutes, free, before you engage anybody: search your address on the Victorian Government's planning property report. It returns your zone and every overlay on the land. Send us that report and we can usually tell you whether a planning permit is likely from one conversation.

Who else your project needs — and when

Drafting is not a solo act. Part of what you're paying for is someone keeping a small team of consultants pointed in the same direction, in the right order. Engage them too late and you redraw; engage them all too early and you pay for work the design outgrows.

What we draft

• Extensions, renovations and second storeys — the most common work, and the most site-constrained.
• New homes and knockdown rebuilds — see residential building design.
• Townhouses, dual occupancies and multi-dwelling — where Clause 55 governs and yield testing matters early.
• Apartment and mixed-use developments — our portfolio runs to 26-residence boutique developments.
• Commercial and industrial — offices, retail, factories and warehouses. See commercial and industrial.
• Steel fabrication shop drawings — in-house, which almost no drafting firm can say. See construction support.
• CAD redraws of existing plans — where the only record is a paper set or a scan.

Specifically: town planning drawings and permit applications, and building permit documentation and working drawings. You can see what we've built across Melbourne, or check the suburbs and regions we work in.

Draftsperson, building designer or architect?

The distinction matters less than the industry pretends, and the fee difference is real. For practical work — extensions, new homes, townhouses, dual occupancies, warehouses, permit documentation — a building designer or draftsperson covers it, generally at lower cost than an architect. Architects earn their fee on highly bespoke, design-led or unusually complex buildings.

The better question is whether the person drawing it understands how it gets built. A set drawn without construction knowledge will usually still pass the permit — and then generate a stream of RFIs, variations and site arguments that cost far more than the drafting ever did. That's the gap we exist to close.

In Victoria, building design practitioners are registered with the Victorian Building Authority. It's a fair question to ask anyone you're considering, including us.

How long it takes, and what it costs

Nobody in this market publishes timeframes, so here are ours plainly. Concept design typically takes 4–8 weeks. If a planning permit is required, council timing is the wildcard — three months for a straightforward application, out to twelve months or more for complex multi-residential. VicSmart applications are the fast lane: a 10 business day statutory clock, no advertising, but only for pre-defined simple proposals. Building permit documentation typically follows over 6–12 weeks.

On fees: they depend on scope, and any firm quoting a single number without seeing your site is guessing. The real drivers are the size and complexity of the build, whether a planning permit is triggered, whether overlays apply, how constrained the site is, and how many consultants need coordinating.

We give you a clear, written fee proposal after an initial conversation about the site, brief and budget. Most engagements start with a paid feasibility stage — deliberately, so you're not committing serious money before you know whether the project is even viable.