Most first-time clients arrive at our studio with a Pinterest board and a partial budget. The good ones arrive with a question. Here is what twenty years of receiving briefs has taught us about how to give one.
Before you contact a designer
Know what you are solving for
Pinterest boards are full of solutions. The brief is about the problem. What is not working in the home you have? What does your current life require that your current space does not give you? The clearer you are about what you are solving for, the better the design that comes back.
Be honest about budget
Designers cannot serve a brief well without knowing what is realistically available to spend. The fear that revealing the budget invites the designer to spend all of it is unfounded for any reputable practice. We design within the budget you give us. We tell you honestly if the brief and the budget are mismatched.
Talk to your household
If the home will be shared, every adult in the household should be in some part of the briefing conversation. Designs that emerge from the input of one half of a couple and surprise the other half are rarely the success they were intended to be.
The first meeting
A typical first meeting at DDA is 90 minutes to two hours. Bring three reference images you genuinely love and can articulate why. Bring a list of things you want to do in the home that you currently cannot. Bring questions about us. Be prepared to answer questions about you.
No drawings happen in the first meeting. Drawings happen after the brief is understood, which usually takes two or three conversations.
What a good brief looks like
A useful written brief, in our experience, contains roughly six things:
- A short statement of the project’s intent in plain language
- A description of the household — who lives there, who visits, how the home is used
- A list of the must-haves and a separate list of the would-be-nices
- A clear budget figure and a separate contingency
- A timeline that includes any non-negotiable dates
- A description of three or four reference projects with what specifically you respond to in each
This brief sits at the centre of the project for the next twelve to fourteen months. It is the document we return to when decisions need to be made.
Questions to ask the designer
- How do you charge — and what does that include?
- Who, exactly, will work on my project?
- How many projects are on your floor right now?
- What is your view on procurement margins on furniture, lighting and finishes?
- When do you say no to a brief?
- How do you handle changes during construction?
- Who manages the contractor?
- What is your contingency policy?
- Will you walk me through a delivered project — in person?
- When have you been wrong, and what did you do about it?
Be wary of any designer who cannot answer the last one with a real story.
What to expect
A typical luxury Malaysian residential project runs nine to fourteen months from brief to handover. The first third is design. The middle third is contractor procurement and construction. The last third is finishing, joinery, and the slow, important work of getting the details right.
Construction will discover things the brief did not anticipate. A 10% contingency on construction value protects the project from compromise when those moments arrive.
If you are starting to plan a project and would like a frank, considered first conversation, we would be glad to hear from you.