Barbara Yerondais has spent 35 years getting Melbourne homes and buildings designed, approved and built, heritage overlays and hard sites included. In one hour at the Collingwood studio she sketches your project while you talk through budget, planning and what is actually possible. The concept is yours to keep, whatever you decide next.
The block you have just bought, the house you want to extend, the forever home you have been sketching on napkins. You want it to be yours, and you want it to work.
You leave with the first true sketch of it, and an honest read on what it will cost.
Heritage overlays, sloping and difficult sites, a council letter that said no. Sixty heritage approvals across ten-plus councils say this is the practice’s home ground.
You leave knowing what the site and the overlay will accept, and a way through.
Warehouses and churches turned into homes, 235-plus community dwellings, developments where the numbers decide. Design that respects the spreadsheet as well as the street.
You leave with the building’s true capacity read straight, before you commit capital.
We do not design until the budget, the site and the feasibility are aligned. Before any design is approved, it is checked against realistic construction costs, site constraints and planning requirements.
If they do not line up, you hear it in the first hour, not after the tender. That is what the sketch on the table is for, and it is why the fee can be fixed before design begins.
You do not need drawings, a brief or a decided budget. You need the address and an idea of what you want your life in the building to look like.
The block, the house or the building, with any photos or plans you have. The council letter too, if there is one. None of it needs to be tidy.
Site, overlay, orientation, budget, planning timeline. She works through them with you and sketches the options live, so you see the trade-offs rather than hear about them.
A hand-drawn concept that is yours to keep, a straight view of cost and approval time, and a fixed fee in writing if you want BY Projects to take it further. No obligation either way.
Approved after another designer’s application had been refused. Three homes inside the church, with the building’s character kept.
One of the council’s most restrictive heritage overlays. Approved, tribunal included, and a derelict cottage became a home built to last.
Twelve months, tribunal included. The refusal was not the end of the project; it was the start of a better design case.
Every site and every council is its own case, so none of this promises your outcome. It is what 59 heritage approvals across ten-plus Victorian councils look like written down.
Principal Architect and founder. B.Arch (RMIT), registered architect (ARBV), Fellow of the Australian Institute of Architects. Building science educator at RMIT and the University of Melbourne. Heritage, bespoke residential and community housing across Melbourne and regional Victoria since 1989.
Some homes look good in photos. Others feel good to live in. The hour is for finding out which one you are actually asking for, and drawing it.
Yes. The concept is yours to keep. If you go ahead with BY Projects you will have a fixed fee in writing before design begins. If you do not, you still have the drawing and a straight answer about budget and planning.
It is the practice’s specialty. 59 heritage approvals across ten-plus Victorian councils, including sites where a previous application had been refused. Bring the overlay schedule if you have it; Barbara will read it with you.
It is the best time. Knowing what a block can hold before you commit to it is worth more than any hour you will spend after.
Yes. Apartments, conversions and community housing are a large part of the practice’s record. The hour reads the building’s true capacity and the planning path before you commit capital.
Suite 4, 86 Wellington Street, Collingwood. One full hour with Barbara, in person.
Every enquiry is read and answered by Barbara personally.
Prefer to talk? 03 9663 8331
