Architect-Designed Homes Melbourne

One house, designed for your block and your life, with the knock-down-rebuild question answered honestly first.

A new home is the purest architectural brief and the easiest one to waste.

FIXED FEES | 35+ YEARS | 400+ VICTORIAN PROJECTS | REGISTERED ARCHITECT (FRAIA)

NEW HOMES, MELBOURNE & VICTORIA

Volume builders sell floor plans by the square metre. An architect designs the one house that fits your block's sun, slope and street, your household's actual life, and a budget agreed before the drawing starts. The difference shows up every morning the light lands where it should, and in every bill the thermal design keeps small.

BY Projects Architecture designs new homes across Melbourne and Victoria: replacement homes on established streets, first homes on new blocks, and the knock-down-rebuild decisions in between. Registered architect Barbara Yerondais FRAIA leads the work, backed by a 35+ year, 400+ project Victorian record and her own building-science grounding, around a decade spent lecturing the subject.

35+

YEARS

400+

PROJECTS

59+

HERITAGE APPROVALS

KNOCK DOWN OR REBUILD

Decided with arithmetic,
not sentiment

The knock-down-rebuild question deserves numbers: what the existing house would cost to fix properly, what the block could carry new, and which path serves the next twenty years.

We run that comparison at feasibility with drawings on both sides. Because the fee is fixed either way, the recommendation carries no incentive towards the bigger project. Where the house deserves saving, we say so, and our renovation lane is the other half of this practice. Where the block deserves better, the new home starts from the site: orientation first, then plan, then form.

PROOF

New homes
on the record

The Zeus, Chelsea Heights, 2021

A detached home in curved metal with a professional workspace built in, shaped by its owners' working life rather than by a catalogue.

Military Road, Avondale Heights, 2023

A two-storey home that captures its outlook while managing privacy on both sides.

Currently in delivery

A knock-down-rebuild in Carrum and a new residence in Mont Albert North, both on site as this page is written.

Torn between fixing the old house and starting again?

Book a feasibility session and both futures get drawn, then compared side by side.

BOOK A FEASIBILITY SESSION

PROCESS

How the design
actually happens

Feasibility reads the block: sun, slope, neighbours, overlays, services.

Concept design finds the house, and Barbara sketches it with you in the room rather than after you leave.

Design development makes it buildable and priceable. Documentation makes it approvable and tenderable.

Running through every stage is the building-science thread: orientation, thermal mass, ventilation and glazing, because comfort is designed rather than retrofitted. Fees are fixed from engagement, and the statutory clocks are programmed truthfully.

DIFFICULT BLOCKS

Where architecture
out-earns its fee

Slopes, narrow frontages, awkward orientations, overlays, easements, established trees, a neighbour's window in exactly the wrong place. These are the conditions a repeated plan cannot absorb and a designed house can.

A difficult block is usually cheaper than an easy one, and the design fee is often less than the discount. That arithmetic is worth running before you rule a site out.

OUTCOME

What a designed
home delivers

A house that fits its block as though it grew there. Rooms placed where your life happens, with light following it. Running costs engineered down before the slab is poured. And a build process where the architect who drew it stays accountable through construction.

COMMON QUESTIONS

New home questions,
answered honestly

Should we renovate, or knock down and rebuild?

Run both futures as drawings and numbers, then choose. That is the feasibility session's job, and the fixed fee means the recommendation carries no incentive either way. Structure, overlays and the decades ahead usually decide it.

What does an architect-designed home cost compared to a volume build?

Usually more up front, said plainly. Design fees buy a house fitted to its site rather than a repeated plan, with thermal performance engineered before construction. Whether that trade is worth it depends on your block and your decades, which is the feasibility conversation. Fees are fixed at engagement.

Can you design around a difficult block?

Difficult blocks are where architecture out-earns its fee. Slopes, narrow frontages, overlays and odd orientations respond to design rather than to catalogues, and our record includes exactly these sites.

How long does a new home take from first meeting to keys?

Design and approvals typically run in months, and construction longer. Every truthful program depends on the council pathway and the builder's book. We map your realistic timeline at feasibility and keep it updated.

Do you work outside Melbourne?

Yes. The practice has delivered across regional Victoria, and our regional page sets out how distance is handled.

LOCAL KNOWLEDGE

Useful planning
resources

Planning Victoria

Permits, setbacks and overlays.

Victorian Heritage Database

Check your property before you plan.

Renovate versus rebuild article

The straight comparison.

START THE CONVERSATION

Start with the block,
not the brochure

A full one-hour feasibility session with Barbara, in person: your land, its possibilities, and the first true sketch of the home it could hold. She sketches while you work through budget, logistics and planning timelines together, and the concept is yours to keep. No obligation.

New homes run on long clocks: design, then approval, then tender, then build. The families moving into theirs next year started before they felt ready.

Start the Conversation

Every project begins with a deep inquiry into site, heritage, and vision. Let’s discuss the strategic potential of your next work.

SCHEDULE A FEASIBILITY SESSION →

A PRELIMINARY CONSULTATION TO EVALUATE HERITAGE CONSTRAINTS, SITE POTENTIAL, AND PROJECT FEASIBILITY.