How do you choose an architect for a Melbourne home extension?

By Barbara Yerondais
Oct 14, 2026

Answering: How do you actually choose the right architect for a home extension in Melbourne, and what should you check before you shortlist or sign?

Estimated reading time: 14 min read

Choose your extension architect on seven checks you can verify on paper before you sign, and judge the portfolio last: the register, the names of the people who will draw your house, a fixed and staged fee, a written agreement you have had time to read, a straight read of your block’s permit path, an honest first answer on budget, and only then the folio. Barbara Yerondais, a fixed-fee renovation and extension architect with 35-plus years in practice, would put her own practice through the same list: BY Projects Architecture has delivered more than 400 projects across Victoria, and its fee is fixed before design begins.

You are standing in the backyard with the tape measure still open. On the laptop inside sit three architect tabs and two builder quotes, and every one of them looks convincing. The house is fine. What you are missing is a fair way to compare the people who want to change it.

The stakes are real. The wrong hire locks in the wrong scope, a fee that bleeds through variations, a plan that photographs beautifully and lives poorly, or a principal who wins the job and is never seen again. On an extension you will live in every day, that is too much to decide from a website gallery.

Key Insights

  • Registration is the floor, and Victoria lets you check it online in moments: only people on the Architects Registration Board of Victoria (ARBV) register can call themselves architects.
  • For agreements made on or after 26 April 2026, your architect must give you the names, roles and registration status of everyone working on your project.
  • Barbara Yerondais, a fixed-fee renovation and extension architect, fixes the fee before design begins and stages it, so the scope is decided on paper rather than discovered in invoices.
  • You get the proposed agreement at least 7 business days before you are asked to sign, and no sketches or concept designs can be provided before it is signed.
  • A good shortlist answer names your block’s permit path before anyone talks about the design.
  • Read the portfolio last, for blocks and budgets like yours.

In this guide

1. Check the register, for the person and the practice

In Victoria, only people registered with the Architects Registration Board of Victoria can call themselves architects, and architectural companies and partnerships must be approved by the Board. The register is searchable by name or company name. The Board’s own advice is to check that your architect is on the register before you start working with them. An architect whose registration is suspended drops off the Register of Architects altogether.

Building designers and draftspeople are a different registration, held through the Building and Plumbing Commission, and they can produce plans and specifications for an extension too. If you are weighing the two, our guide to the architect versus building designer question sets out the difference.

  • Search every shortlisted name on the ARBV register, and the practice’s name as well.
  • Check any designer or draftsperson on the Building and Plumbing Commission’s register.
  • Treat a pass as the floor. Registration tells you who may use the title, and the next six checks tell you who will do the work well.

2. Ask who will actually draw your house

A common fear is simple: the principal you liked at the first meeting hands your house to someone you never meet. Victoria now writes the answer into the paperwork. Under clause 6 of the Victorian Architects Code of Professional Conduct, when you enter an agreement made on or after 26 April 2026, the architect must give you the names of everyone involved in your project, with their role and their registration status.

You do not have to wait for the agreement to ask. Put the question to every practice at shortlist stage, and listen for names rather than job titles.

At BY Projects Architecture, the people are on our team page: Barbara Yerondais as principal, project architects Howard Siow, with the practice since 2014 and registered since 2017, and Judit Solerdelcoll, with the practice since June 2021, and graduate of architecture Ioanna Petropoulou.

  • Ask who leads the design, who documents it, and who answers the builder’s questions on site.
  • Ask how often the principal reviews the drawings.
  • Note whether the answers match the names you are later given in writing.

3. Get the fee fixed, staged and written down

Fee totals are hard to compare because practices quote different scopes. The ARBV’s Working with an Architect Checklist, which an architect must give you for a house, gives you the list to compare against: how the fees are calculated and paid, estimates of disbursements such as a planning application, how a change to the services affects the fee, and the circumstances that can make it rise.

Barbara Yerondais’s staged fixed-fee method answers those questions at the start of the engagement. Schematic design comes first. Then you see what your budget achieves set beside what the full wish list would cost, with a shopping list between them, so the scope becomes your decision instead of a surprise. The fee is fixed for that scope, which is the point of hiring a fixed-fee renovation and extension architect. She is also candid that on a small, simple job a fixed fee can look expensive against the build, and she will tell you so before you sign anything.

Our pieces on what fixed-fee cost certainty buys and on what an architect costs in Melbourne go further into the numbers.

  • Lay each proposal out stage by stage: feasibility, design, documentation, permits, and help during construction.
  • Ask what, in writing, would make the fee go up.

4. Read the agreement before anyone draws

Clause 6 is blunt. A Victorian architect must not collect a fee or provide architectural services, including concept designs, sketches or reports, unless a written agreement is in place and signed. The proposed agreement has to reach you at least 7 business days before the architect asks for your signature, although you may sign sooner if you choose.

The agreement must set out the scope, the timeframes, how the fees are calculated, current professional indemnity insurance, who owns the copyright, and the terms of your licence to use the design. That last clause matters more than it looks. Consumer Affairs Victoria explains that, unless agreed otherwise, you can only use plans once, and only on the site they were designed for.

  • Read the licence clause twice, especially if you might change builder.
  • Do not treat the $1.2 million minimum insurance as the answer: the Board says that figure is for holding registration, and the checklist asks for cover adequate for your work.
  • Ask questions until the answers are in writing.

5. Make them read your block’s permit path first

Before anyone designs, someone should read your block. Planning Victoria’s free Planning Property Report shows the zone, every overlay, whether the property is on the Victorian Heritage Register and whether it sits in a designated bushfire prone area.

Lot size then does a lot of the sorting. Extending a single house on a lot under 300 square metres in Victoria’s main residential zones needs a planning permit assessed against Clause 54, the single home code, which changed on 8 September 2025. A proposal that meets every listed standard can go through VicSmart, a 10 business day process with no advertising. On most residential lots over 300 square metres, those siting rules are assessed with the building permit instead. Where a planning permit is needed, it has to come before the building permit.

A practice worth shortlisting tells you which of those paths your house is on before it talks about rooflines. Barbara Yerondais’s practice, BY Projects Architecture, has lodged more than 200 permit applications, a record of the process and never a promise about yours.

6. Expect an honest first answer on budget

The best early sign is an architect who tells you what is realistic before design fees start running. With Barbara, that starts with a free, no-obligation call: she rings you herself to talk it through. If it is a fit, the next step is the one-hour Feasibility Session. In one hour with Barbara Yerondais, FRAIA, in person or on Zoom, you’ll talk through your site, budget and planning timelines, and leave knowing what’s realistic and what your next step is. There’s no obligation to go further.

Smaller jobs are welcome. The booking form now offers an “Under $500k” budget band and a “Smaller renovation or alteration” project type, and a modest extension gets the same straight conversation. Our article on what that one hour settles before a design contract walks through it.

7. Read the portfolio last, for fit

Once the first six checks are clear, the folio tells you something useful. Look past the hero shots for houses like yours: an ordinary block, a family budget, a plan that needed fixing as well as enlarging.

Our Altona project is that kind of evidence. A 1960s triple-fronted brick veneer house, untouched for 60 years, needed more bedrooms on a modest budget. Enclosing an underused rear patio created a new lounge and dining area under clerestory windows, and the old living room became a fourth bedroom with an ensuite: three bedrooms and one bathroom became four and two, without a full demolition.

  • Ask what the constraint was on each project you like.
  • Ask past clients whether the budget, the timeline and the documentation matched what they were promised.

Builder, designer, planner, surveyor: who does what beside your architect

An extension is a team job, and the right architect works alongside the others. Barbara does not replace any of them.

Who Registered through What they do on your extension Where Barbara fits
Builder Building and Plumbing Commission Prices and builds the work; a major domestic building contract is required over $10,000 where more than one trade is involved, and for contracts from 1 July 2026 Home Warranty insurance generally applies to eligible work over $20,000 Documents the design so builders price the same thing, and can help you compare them
Building designer or draftsperson Building and Plumbing Commission Produces plans and specifications, and can help with permit applications A clear alternative for a simple addition; Barbara is the call when the whole house needs replanning
Council planner or town planning consultant No building registration listed The council planner assesses the permit and can tell you whether one is needed; a consultant can prepare the case Designs to the standards council will assess, from schematic design onward
Building surveyor Building and Plumbing Commission Issues the building permit and inspects the work; you appoint them, never your builder Prepares the documentation the surveyor assesses
Structural engineer Business Licensing Authority Advises on footings, frames and load-bearing walls Coordinates the engineer’s work into the drawings

In short, the builder prices the build and the surveyor permits it, while Barbara works out what the block and the budget will hold before anyone draws.

Closing

Choosing an extension architect is a paper exercise first and a taste exercise second. Check the register, get the names, fix and stage the fee, read the agreement, read the block, and ask for an honest budget answer before you fall for a photograph. Barbara Yerondais, a fixed-fee renovation and extension architect, fixes the fee before design begins and talks budget before anyone draws, which is the order this list recommends. To see how that order plays out on real houses, explore our work as home extension architects in Melbourne. Then talk to Barbara, and bring your property report.

Frequently asked questions about choosing an extension architect

Q: Do I need a registered architect for a home extension in Victoria?

A: No. Plans and specifications for an extension can come from a registered architect, or from a building designer or draftsperson registered with the Building and Plumbing Commission. What Victorian law protects is the title: only people registered with the Architects Registration Board of Victoria can call themselves architects. If you choose an architect, search their name and their practice on the ARBV register before you sign.

Q: What should an architect’s agreement include before I sign?

A: For a house, the ARBV’s Working with an Architect Checklist sets it out: the parties and the responsible architect’s registration number, the scope and timeframes, how fees are calculated and paid, estimates of disbursements, what changes do to the fee, professional indemnity insurance, copyright and your licence to use the plans, complaint routes and how either side can end the agreement. You should receive it at least 7 business days before you are asked to sign.

Q: Can I take my architect’s plans to a different builder?

A: That depends on the licence in your agreement, which the Code requires it to state. Consumer Affairs Victoria explains that architects, designers and draftspeople hold copyright, and unless agreed otherwise you can use the plans once, only on the site they were designed for. Read the copyright and licence clause before you sign, especially if you expect to tender the job.

Q: How do I start with BY Projects if my extension is on the smaller side?

A: Talk to Barbara. The first step is a free, no-obligation call, and Barbara rings you herself to see whether it is a fit. If it is, the one-hour Feasibility Session follows, in person or on Zoom, to talk through your site, budget and planning timelines. Smaller jobs are welcome, and the booking form includes an “Under $500k” budget band.

Where this advice comes from

Barbara Yerondais, FRAIA, brings 35-plus years in practice to the first conversation, and BY Projects Architecture has delivered more than 400 projects across Victoria. We would rather you hired well, whoever you hire.

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About the Author

Barbara Yerondais, FRAIA, is the founder of BY Projects Architecture. With 35+ years of experience, she specializes in sustainable, community-focused design and heritage restoration. A dedicated mentor and rower, Barbara balances her high-impact Melbourne practice with a passion for social inclusion and passive, energy-saving design.

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