What We Do

The best design outcomes involve our advice in the early stages of a project. Some of the services we offer include:

• sharing our knowledge of exemplary benchmarks that can help inform a business case
• communicating the requirements for design quality that informs a design brief
• providing perspective on governance and planning frameworks that appropriately balances public benefit with competing interest
• assisting with design consultant procurement, using our industry and client-side experience
• reviewing the work of design consultants to ensure quality design standards are upheld
• reviewing building delivery procurement processes so that quality outcomes can be achieved under different contractual conditions
• conducting post occupancy evaluations on built outcomes to inform future projects.

We engage with government project teams in diverse ways, including:

• formal design review of projects via the Victorian Design Review Panel (VDRP) model
• dedicated design review embedded within government project teams
• less structured desktop review of projects - usually with focus on a particular document or drawing set
• contributing advice into reports formatted by other government departments.

You can see us advocating for design in a variety of ways. Some of these include:

• design competitions
• demonstration projects
• design awards
• research working groups
• publications describing how to achieve good design
• speaking engagements at public, industry and educational design events.