Design and building budget

Pricing Your Design Project

There are a couple of different ways to price a project for construction. The most common methods used for a residential project are a competitive tender or a negotiated offer.

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How to Manage Design Decisions

Decision fatigue refers to the sense of overwhelm people feel when they are required to make too many decisions. At Maike Design, our clear process breaks design decisions into manageable groups.

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Design Drawing

The process of drawing can be a direct connection to your thought process - lines follow on from previous lines, they move and shift as the ideas form. It is a tool for thought, creativity and problem solving.

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Designing to Age in Place

From preventing falls to designing beautiful welcoming spaces to help address social isolation, there is a place for architecture and design in the discussion about aging.

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How lists can alleviate mental load

I’ve had a few people ask about how I use them to organise myself, so I thought I’d give you a quick rundown on my system. Your brain can get overwhelmed a lot quicker than you might think.

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Using InDesign as a design tool

To be more efficient in my communication the early design presentations the template layouts identified include sketches, renders, diagrams, plans and line drawings.

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Maike Design bookshelves and workbench with artwork

Home has always been important

Now that we are spending more time than ever inside, the importance of finding or creating a place to retreat to that makes us feel at home should not be underestimated.

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How to capture your process

Before I started, capturing my process was a bit overwhelming. I hope it gives you some perspective and perhaps a starting point if you’re doing the same.

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What does the process need to be?

Every business big and small has processes.  What differentiates a sustainable practice is the awareness and conscious implementation of this process.

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Make things better

As a bunch of people, I love how thoughtful designers and Architects are.  I believe that well considered design has the capability to create change.

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At Maike Design we strive to...

How do you define what is really important to you? Your fundamental values, both personally and in business. Have you ever tried to clearly express what those things are? Its surprisingly difficult to do!

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What does a design business need?

These are ideas I knew would be part of my overall direction but I had decided on each in isolation, without any overall strategy for implementation. 

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Hello, let me introduce myself

Hi, Thanks for visiting. These posts will be a place to share our design inspiration, current work and updates on how we are developing as a studio.

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“Mairead was amazing with our renovation from start to finish - helping us through the process each step of the way, identifying the things we loved and building our own personal style into her amazing designs. ...we knew that she was on top of every piece of the puzzle, with great communication and quickly resolving any issues or tweaks to the design as needed."

"Mairead's personal presence, coupled with her experience and skills in both architecture and interior design were a winning combination for us. She came on board our Prahran renovation project at an integral time, when everything needed to 'come together', but she brought more to the project then we anticipated."

"I'm of the opinion that the feeling of being 'home' will never get old here! Your willingness to engage with everyone including the kids and consideration of Murray the dog has resulted in a home that is functioning like a dream. ...to live in our home is to truly experience the thoughtfulness and purposeful design you've delivered."