SELF BUILD MENTOR Architect Brief Creator
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Tell your architect what you actually want

Most briefs are two paragraphs and a Pinterest link. What comes back is a house the architect would like to have designed, and three rounds of revisions you pay for. This walks you through eight stages and assembles a proper written brief at the end.

Why this matters more than anything else you do The brief is the only document that describes the house you want in your own words. Everything downstream — the design, the planning application, the tender, the build — is an interpretation of it. A weak brief doesn't produce a cheaper house; it produces a slower, more expensive one, because the discovery happens through drawings instead of conversation.

How to use this

Work through it over a week, not an evening. Your answers save in this browser as you go, so you can close the tab and come back. Do the reference-gathering stage away from the screen — it needs looking at real houses.

Do it with whoever else is deciding. The most common cause of a stalled design is two people who never agreed the brief and only discover it at planning stage.

Before you start — two things worth having

A budget you believe. Not a hope. If you haven't got one, our Initial Cost Calculator gets you a defensible range in ten minutes, and Stage 2 asks for the number.

Somewhere to collect images. Pinterest, Houzz, a folder of screenshots — anything. Stage 5 asks for them, and it asks what you like about each one, which is the part that matters.

Stage 9 of 9 · Your brief

Your design brief

Read it through as though you were the architect receiving it. Anything that makes you think "they'll ask me about that" is worth going back and answering now.

Before you send it

Send this brief to every architect you're considering, along with your budget. The ones who engage with it properly — who come back with questions rather than sketches — are the ones worth interviewing.

And keep it. Revisit it at planning stage and again before tender. If the design has drifted from the brief, that is a conversation to have while drawings are still cheap to change.

If you'd like it read by someone independent

A Strategy Session is 90 minutes on your project specifically — including whether this brief asks for a house your budget can actually build, which is the question most people find out the expensive way.

Book a Strategy Session
Self Build Mentor — independent guidance and mentoring only. We are not acting as your architect, engineer, contract administrator, project manager, principal designer or contractor. This tool helps you write a brief; it is not a design or a specification.