Today’s issue of Domain in the Sydney Morning Herald had a cover story about owner-builders. It was essentially about how you can save money by not hiring a professional to do the job but to do it yourself. Just as it is cheaper for me to rewire my entire apartment than it is to hire an electrician. Cheaper and only fourteen thousand times more dangerous.

In a box at the end of the article they had another little handy hint for the folks at home, which essentially read: you don’t need an architect, all you need is the Building Code of Australia. I am not sure if they have had a flick through the BCA, but it is a fairly impenetrable document for architects and builders to use let alone Mary-Jo and Steve who want to design their new dream home. It is also a document full of fire ratings and ramp gradients with absolutely no design related content.

Anyway, here is what the Sydney Morning Herald would have you do:

Having drawn up some plans that comply with the Building Code of Australia, you then have the options of either submitting those directly to council, or taking them to a professional draftsperson.

Andrew Owens of interior and architecture consultancy Futurespace also suggests that where the site is particularly challenging or where an owner-builder feels that they’re not coming up with the best solution, they could approach an architect about developing a concept for the job for a set fee.

“You can say, ‘Look I’ll give you some money and I want you to come up with the scheme, but then Joe over here, who is a draftsperson, he can draw it up for me. And I’ll build it. But help me sort out the problems.’”

This is precisely the kind of crap the RAIA should be speaking out against.