Residential design across every scale

BuiltIN Studio's residential portfolio spans the full spectrum: hero family homes, knockdown rebuilds, dual occupancies, townhouse developments, boutique apartments and large-scale mixed-use. The thread through all of it is the same — design that balances livability and beauty with the realities of cost, planning and construction.

We work with private homeowners, developers, builders and landowners. Whether the project is your forever home or a thirty-unit yield play, we bring the same craft and the same construction-trained pragmatism.

Residential building design Melbourne — custom home and apartment design

Custom homes

Knockdown rebuilds and new builds for owners who want something genuinely tailored. We start with a thorough understanding of how you actually live, and shape a home around that — not a catalogue plan with the kitchen flipped. Our construction background means we can advise on cost trade-offs in real time, before they become problems on site.

Multi-dwelling & townhouses

Dual occupancies, three- and four-pack townhouse developments, side-by-sides — we know the planning levers that make these projects work in Melbourne, and the design moves that maximise yield without triggering planning objections. Documentation is prepared with feasibility, sales and construction in mind.

Clause 54 or Clause 55 — which one governs you

Almost every residential planning question in Victoria comes back to one distinction. A single dwelling on a lot is assessed under Clause 54. Two or more dwellings on a lot step up to Clause 55, which is longer, stricter and far more consequential.

That single step — one house or two — changes the standards you must satisfy, the likelihood of advertising and objections, the assessment timeframe, and ultimately what fits on the land. It's why we test yield before drawing anything on a multi-dwelling site. See townhouse and unit development drafting.

Do you even need a planning permit?

Many single dwellings don't. They're as-of-right and go straight to a building permit. What triggers a planning permit is the zone and any overlay sitting over the land — heritage, bushfire, significant landscape, inundation, design and development.

You can check this yourself in about two minutes on the Victorian Government's planning property report, free, before engaging anyone. It's the first thing we look at, and it reshapes the programme more than any other single fact.

The constraints that shape a house

Orientation — northern light is the cheapest amenity available and the hardest to retrofit. It also drives the energy rating, which drives glazing cost.
Slope and levels — a fall across the site decides whether you're cutting, filling, or building a very expensive retaining wall. This is why a feature and level survey comes before design, not after.
Overlooking and overshadowing — assessable, and the most common ground on which neighbours object.
Easements and services — you cannot build over a sewer without an agreement, and finding out late redesigns the house.
Energy performance — the NatHERS rating is not a form filled in at the end. It determines glazing, insulation, orientation and construction, and it should inform the design from the start rather than punish it at the end.

Knockdown rebuild versus renovating

The honest answer depends on the bones and the overlay. If the existing structure is sound, the layout is salvageable and there's no heritage constraint, extending is often better value. If you're fighting the existing building at every turn — bad orientation, failing stumps, a plan that can't be rescued — a rebuild frequently costs less per square metre and delivers a better house.

What tips it is rarely sentiment. It's whether a heritage overlay protects the street form, and what the existing structure can actually carry. We'll give you the unwelcome version of that answer at feasibility rather than after you've paid for a design. See extension and renovation drafting.

Drawn to be built

A house that passes the permit and then generates forty RFIs on site hasn't been documented; it's been sketched and approved. Our background is construction, so we detail the junctions where drawings usually go quiet. Related: architectural drafting, working drawings, projects.

Residential design.