What is a brief, and why do you need one?

When thinking of doing home renovations, creating a brief is crucial to help your architect turn your thoughts into designs. Coming from the architectural world, everyone talks about 'the brief' as if we all know what that means, but it isn't necessarily obvious.  In this article we're going to first explain what a brief is and how it fits into the process of getting a renovation project done, then list five reasons why it is important, and finally give you some ideas of what you can include in the brief for your project. 

So what exactly is a brief, and how do you make one? 

According to the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) guide to working with an architect for your home, a brief is "your wish list for the project, where you set out what you want to achieve, noting down all your requirements and highlighting any problems that need solving".  The brief is THE key document at the beginning of the project that everything else will flow from, and it is the task of the client to set it out initially and decide how it should change in response to feedback. Coming up with the brief is a process in itself, and the earliest stages of any project are essentially about figuring out what the desired outcomes are, setting those down in an ordered way and then testing them.  The output of that briefing process is the final brief.

The briefing process

A. List your desired project outcomes

To begin with, you should think strategically and set out what you are seeking to achieve at the highest level from your project. These are your desired project outcomes. Are you looking to expand the space in your home because you have a new baby on the way, or perhaps expand the space in your home with an eye to selling it and moving on? Though both those examples involve expanding a home, the desired project outcomes are different. 

B. Add detail

Having set out the desired outcomes, you can then add detail to the brief as you go along, for example by saying roughly how much space you need (perhaps space for two more bedrooms and to expand the kitchen), or how you want it to feel (perhaps warm, friendly and cosy, or simple, cool and minimal), or how much money the project needs to make if you're looking at it from an investment point of view. 

C. Test the brief and revise it

The testing part of the briefing process comes in the form of 'feasibility studies', which are essentially quick designs that you can use to understand how achievable the brief is.  You may have started the process thinking you wanted to add two more bedrooms, but the feasibility studies could show that this would be too cramped, or too expensive, and so with that knowledge you refine the brief down to a single bedroom with an ensuite shower instead.  Once you're happy that you have a final brief that captures all your requirements you are then ready to move on and begin the next stage of the design process. 

Why is the brief so important to get right?

Here are five reasons why a good brief is beneficial for you and your design team:

1. Clear Communication: The design brief allows you to communicate your goals, preferences, and specific needs clearly. It helps your architect gain insights into your lifestyle, functional requirements, and aesthetic tastes, ensuring that the design aligns with your vision. It can serve as a reference document throughout the entire design process, and minimises the risk of misinterpretation and misunderstandings within the team. 

2. Scope Definition: The brief helps you and your architect define the project's scope, including the size of the property, desired features, and budget constraints. It sets clear boundaries, ensuring that the design stays within the agreed-upon parameters. Delays and budget overruns are often to do with design changes late in the design or construction process. With the scope clearly defined by the brief, these changes should be minimised, or if unavoidable, then at least mutually understood as being a derogation from the brief. 

3. Cost Management: By providing a project budget alongside the brief, you put an essential constraint on the design. Aligning the brief with the budget is one of the goals of the early project stages and the briefing process, and by the end of the briefing process you should have confidence that the final brief is achievable within the budget. 

4. Collaboration and Feedback: While setting out the brief is a task for the client, testing it and refining it is an iterative, collaborative process, in which everyone involved in the project can bounce ideas around before the stakes get too high, and changes become costly.  

5. Personalised Solutions: By providing a detailed brief, you enable your architect to tailor their design to meet your unique requirements. This personalisation at the early stage allows for a final design that reflects your style and caters to your specific needs, rather than a generic 'off the shelf' solution. 

What should a brief include? 

A brief can take many forms, or to put it another way, a brief can be made up of many different types of information, including lists, schedules, diagrams, sketches, and photographs.  Every brief is different, and not everything on this list may be suitable for your project or way of working, but they are worth considering. 

• Project outcomes: Setting aside the specifics of your building to begin with, is there something you want your project to achieve?  For example, someone may be looking for 'better health' as an outcome, which could lead to solutions like including a home gym, altering your bedroom to improve sleep quality, or filtering the air.

• Spatial requirements: More straightforwardly, what rooms do you need, and how big do you need them?  Another level of detail would be to set out some desired adjacencies (for example, 'the boot room should be near the laundry, with access to the side path'). Again, the process of defining the spatial requirements could start quite broad ('two bedrooms') but become detailed through refinement of the brief ('one bedroom big enough for a super-king sized bed and a walk-in wardrobe, one bedroom that fits a single bed and desk'). The final version of the spatial requirements may be a schedule of rooms with their desired floor areas and functions set out, and a bubble diagram showing the adjacencies of the different rooms.

• Sustainability outcomes: There are many different sustainability standards that you could choose to adopt for your project. Do you want to just meet the minimums set out in the building regulations? Or do you want to be net-zero carbon, or Passivhaus, or reach a certain BREAAM level? 

• Quality aspirations: These can be subjective (a feeling, or a mood) or objective (a  certain £/sq m rate). As the RIBA state in the Plan of Work Overview, “Quality comes in many guises. It can relate to the building, a space, or materials and finishes or to the quality of construction. Some clients base their quality aspirations on value.” 

• Precedents: It is completely valid to include precedents of exemplar projects that capture some of the qualities you want in your own project - in fact these may be the best way to express your quality aspirations. You could include photos of other completed projects or plans of other designs you think meet your spatial requirements. 

In summary, a well-prepared brief is a powerful tool that facilitates effective communication between you, your architect, and the rest of the design team. It empowers them to create personalized, functional, and beautiful designs that bring your vision to life. A bad brief ensures that you will end up with a bad building, while a good brief puts you on the right track for a successful project (though of course doesn't guarantee success, many other things also have to go right!)

However, coming up with a brief or testing the brief can be difficult, especially if you don’t know where to start. This is part of the reason why Preview Studio was created - to help you understand the potential of your home. Our designs can function as feasibility studies to see what works and what doesn't in a brief, with a rough idea of cost to let you plan your budget realistically. Our documents form a useful guide for you and your architect or designer to begin the design process for your home.