Advantages of our Sustainable Design and Construction:
- Security and Peace-of-mind during the unique ‘design and construction’ process. Sustainable will deliver right from the initial concept design through to construction completion.
- Complete solution of sustainable design, construction, landscaping and project management
- Design team involved throughout both design and construction
- Utilise sustainable design principles including passive design, orientation, solar access, ventilation etc
- Our designers are Australian Greensmart Professionals
- Our designers are award winning Australian Greensmart Professionals of the Year
- We have won in excess of 60 high level National and Local Awards
- Sustainable guarantees client satisfaction and personalised service
- Compact, cost effective design service
- We Project Manage the entire process from start to finish, including your other consultants (engineers, certifiers etc).
- We look at your future needs and lifetime solutions by looking at the 25 year life cycle of houses
- Our ethos is to sustainably create and build homes that complement the client’s site and work in harmony with the environment.
Sustainable’s award-winning reputation has been developed by consistently creating designer lifestyle homes of ultimate style and comfort for Queensland’s most discerning homeowners, including many well-known identities from the business, entertainment and sporting worlds.
What sets us ahead of our competitors is the fact that the Sustainable Group of businesses are not just designers, nor builders, nor are we simply construction contractors or commercial development specialists. While we offer all of these vital services, it is our unique ‘design-construct’ process, which allows us to deliver better outcomes for our valued clients.
Our design team are heavily involved in both the design and construction process to ensure build ability of the project. We will deliver a compact, cost-effective and refined sustainable design service that quickly moves into construction and minimises the holding process and costs (i.e. renting whilst building).
What we design
- Individual Houses
- Recipe Houses
- Retrofits
- Units
- Pools
- Entertainment Areas
- Sustainable Communities
Where
Sustainable designs and construct throughout:
- Brisbane
- Gold Coast
- Sunshine Coast
- Southern Downs QLD
- Toowoomba
- North Coast NSW
Where we design only (not construct):
- Australia wide
- Internationally
Sustainability
Living Sustainable saves you money!
Our superb sustainable house designs incorporate principles of sustainability within our designs to address both your current and future needs. We focus on lifetime solutions and look at the 25 year life cycle of your house and savings to guarantee the certainty of your lifestyle and the certainty of a realistic fixed budget. This means dollars back in your pocket long term!
Our homes are sustainable and energy efficient because they all take into account our proven Sustainability Principles for over 30 years of:
- Passive design
- Energy efficiency
- Solar orientation
- Passive ventilation
- Site management
- Water and storm water management
- Integrated Landscaping Design
- Built form issues
- Views & vistas
- Challenges versus commercial outcomes and opportunities.
- Life Cycle Assessment of building, product and material choices to manage you Ongoing Resource Management & Costs after your home is constructed.
Process
Setting us apart from our competitors is the fact that SUSTAINABLE offers a unique ‘design and construction’ process for sustainable housing.
We have a hand selected design, construction and landscaping team that allows us to deliver better outcomes for our valued clients.
Our total design and construction process involves:
- You meet with us to discuss your design objectives, lifestyle requirements and agree on your requirements.
- Your designs are created that suit your lifestyle and will help significantly minimise your future running costs, whilst also minimising the impact the build will have on the environment.
- Your house is constructed utilising exceptional, environmentally-favourable designs.
Your sustainable housing will not only meet your immediate and future needs, but will also benefit the environment. The end result is a seamless project, which achieves your specific outcome and ensures a reliable team is available to you for years to come should you require additional support
Design Stages
There are various design stages for each project. We discuss these Design Stages with you to make sure we tailor a package that suits your requirements.
Dependent upon your project type, this will determine which of the following stages you require. For instance a smaller project like a retrofit/renovation, this may only require Design Stages 1 & 3. For a larger project such as a new house design and construct package, this would require all the following Design Stages:
Design Stage 1 – Needs & Site Analysis
Design Stage 2 – Concept Design
Design Stage 3 – Schematic Design
Design Stage 4 – Working Drawings
Project Management
One of the benefits of selecting sustainable is that we project manage the entire design and build process, including liasing with and obtaining all other information from external consultants. The main consultants/services you need are:
- Surveyor for a survey and contours plan of your site
- Soils Test
- Structural Engineer
- Building Certifier for building approval
Other consultants and services that you may also need, that we project manage for you are:
- City Councils ie Brisbane, Ipswich, Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast, Southern Downs City Councils etc.
- Town Planners for Development Approvals
- Accoustic Engineer
- Environmental Engineer
- Arborist
- Bushfire Consultant
Time
- Individual House
- Will vary in accordance with your site, design and lifestyle requirements.
- As an example for an individual House between 300-400m2 = 6-8 months for construction
- Recipe House (one of our designs customised for your site) will involve:
- Design Stage – 8 weeks (approximately)
- Construction Stage – 12-18 weeks (approximately)
As an example a small Recipe House (Tivoli House) took 10 weeks and one of our large Recipe Houses (Boonah House) took 4 months with 2 months for landscaping.
- Retrofit
- Will vary in accordance with your site, design and lifestyle requirements.
Costs
Your design costs:
The design fees vary for each of the different types of houses and are based upon each individual house and the site location.
Our design fees are very competitive compared to other consultants. For instance
- We charge for Individual Houses = 6-9% of the construction cost
- We charge for Recipe Houses = between $10-30k
…whereas…
- Draftsmen charge 4-5%
- Architects charge 10-15% (plus contract administration to be onsite during the build)