What is a design brief?
A design brief is the document in which the client records, before any design work, what the building has to achieve — without yet prescribing what it looks like. It describes objectives, rooms, performance, constraints and budget. That makes it two things at once: the instruction to the designer and the yardstick against which every design proposal is later measured. In Dutch it is called a programma van eisen (PvE).
The strongest rule of thumb: a brief states requirements, not solutions. “The play area in the garden must be visible from the kitchen” is a requirement. “A kitchen on the garden side with a wide window” is already a design decision — and giving that away costs you the best solution.
What belongs in it
- Objective and starting point — what is being built, for whom, to what standard
- Schedule of accommodation — per room: function, number of users, desired area and height, daylight, relationships with other rooms
- Relationship diagram — which rooms must adjoin and which must not (noise, privacy, circulation)
- Performance requirements — thermal and acoustic performance, ventilation, daylight, fire safety, accessibility, energy target
- Technical and material requirements — maintenance level, sustainability ambition, preferences and exclusions
- Constraints — the site, planning policy, existing structure, listed status, utility connections
- Budget and programme — investment budget including a contingency, desired completion date
- Requirements versus wishes — separate hard requirements from wishes, and rank the wishes
Why it pays
- A mistake in the brief is cheap; the same mistake on site is expensive. At the early stage a change costs no more than drawing time.
- It makes design proposals comparable, and reduces arguments about taste to a test against agreed requirements.
- It forces the client to decide before money starts moving.
Common mistakes
- Fixing solutions too early, leaving the designer no room
- Forgetting life after handover: maintenance, cleaning, storage, waste, bikes, plant space
- No prioritisation, so that cuts are made arbitrarily when the budget is exceeded
- Not keeping the brief up to date. Every change during design belongs back in the document; otherwise two versions of the truth soon exist
- Unmeasurable requirements such as “an attractive appearance” — make them concrete or label them explicitly as wishes
For a house a good brief runs to ten or twenty pages; in non-residential work it can run to hundreds.
Related terms
- Specification
- Building costs
- Best Value Procurement
- Performance-based contract
- Tendering
Want to learn more about construction terms? Visit our knowledge base at fredsdiyplans.com.