Case Study: Reimagining a Keperra Renovation to Fit the Real Budget

The owners of a single-storey timber cottage in Keperra came to us at early-stage design, with a renovation and extension concept already taking shape. Increased living space, a new upper level, better use of a sloping block — the kind of project most renovations start as. What they had not yet done was test whether the concept was actually achievable for the budget they had in mind.

Stage 1 — Foundation: the reality check

We started with a Foundation engagement, working from the concept as it stood. The cost position that came back showed the design was tracking significantly over the budget the owners had — enough that pushing straight ahead into detailed drawings would have meant spending real money and months of design time on a layout that was not going to be achievable. That is precisely the outcome Foundation exists to prevent: finding out early, while decisions are still cheap to change, rather than after a tender comes back.

Stage 2 — Feasibility Visit: back to the drawing board, properly

Rather than abandon the project or quietly cut corners, we moved to a Feasibility Visit, on site, to work through what was actually driving the cost — the retaining and earthworks demanded by the slope, the scale of new construction, the specification level — and where genuine savings could come from without losing what the owners actually wanted from the project.

Stage 3 — A reimagined direction

The result was not a smaller, compromised version of the original brief. It was a different approach to the same goal — reshaping the scope and style of the project so the owners could still get the additional space and amenity they were after, delivered in a way that sat much closer to their actual budget. A new strategy, not a scaled-back one.

Where the project is now

The owners are progressing this revised direction into design now, with a documented Feasibility Design Brief guiding their designer — confident the project in front of them is one they can actually build, rather than one they would have discovered was unbuildable only after paying for a full set of drawings.

Why this matters beyond one project

This is the scenario a project running over budget almost always traces back to: a concept that was never tested against real cost before design time and money were spent developing it. The fix is rarely cutting the brief. More often it is finding a different way to deliver the same goals — which is only possible if the gap is found early enough to still have options.