Planning and Designs Case Studies

Emily Keane · Captain

We have built hundreds of these. Almost none of them are written down in a way anybody outside the job could learn from, sell with, or point a customer at.

That is what this lab is for: turning finished work into case studies — what the block was, what the customer wanted, what the planning rules allowed, what we designed, and what actually happened.

Emily is the captain. What a case study has to contain is her call, not mine. I can find the blocks, pull the numbers, read the leases and draft the words; I cannot tell you which parts of a planning story matter to somebody reading it, and I would rather be corrected early than build fifty of the wrong thing.

A first one, so there is something to argue with

This is drafted from a real project. Every number is from the approved plans or the register. It is deliberately a draft — the point is for Emily to say what is missing, what is irrelevant, and what we would never put in front of a customer.

Ngunnawal — 407m², and the extension still fitted

The question. The owners wanted more room: a living area, a study that could be a bedroom, an ensuite and a laundry. The obvious answer in Canberra right now is a second dwelling. On this block it was the wrong answer.

The block	407 m² — small for anything
What was added	50.2 m²: living room, study/bedroom, ensuite, laundry
Shape	L-shaped, joined to the house by a link
Plot ratio used	35.21%
Private open space	205.6 m² against 194.2 m² required ✓ 11 m² to spare
Cost	build $306,029 · planning $34,150 · utilities $21,866 — $362,044
Lease Variation Charge	Nil
Outcome	Built. Photographed and filmed

Why it is worth writing up. On a 407m² block a second dwelling would have meant varying the Crown lease, and the Lease Variation Charge can be $49,000 for every home the lease ends up allowing. Extending the existing house added the same rooms, cost nothing in lease variation, and still left eleven square metres of open space above the minimum. That is a planning decision worth a great deal of money, and nobody outside this office knows we make it well.

The design, as published — with the walkthrough video of the finished build.

What I need from Emily

Three questions. Short answers are fine, and "that is wrong" is the most useful answer there is.

1. Is that the right shape for a case study? The question, the block, the numbers, the decision, the outcome. What is missing, and what would you take out? Should it name the suburb? The street? Neither?

2. What makes a case worth writing up at all? A tight block? A rule we got around? A refusal we overturned? A customer who wanted the wrong thing and we talked them out of it? I can find blocks by their numbers — I cannot tell which stories are the good ones.

3. Who reads these? A customer deciding, a planner at the Territory, or us? Each one wants a different document, and writing for all three usually means writing for none.

Answer them wherever suits. There is a page here for notes — Emily's notes — built the same way as your feedback page on the Planning Assessment Report lab, so it should feel familiar: type in a row, it saves itself. Or tell Frank and he will pass it on.

What happens once the shape is agreed

Emily settles what a case study contains. That becomes the template.
I go through the finished work — the Design Engine holds 1,030 designs and GCONS the projects behind them — and propose the cases worth writing up, with the numbers already pulled.
Emily picks the ones worth doing and corrects the planning in each.
They go wherever they earn their keep: the websites, proposals, the Planning Assessment Report, or in front of the Territory.

Planning and Designs Case Studies · a CGFB lab · started 19 October 2026. Nothing here is published to customers without Emily's say-so. The worked example above uses a real block; the owners are not named and will not be.