Design features
All designs perform above industry standard and provide:
- plenty of access to natural light
- 100% effective natural ventilation
- improved accessibility features that exceed current standards
- excellent environmental performance, including a minimum 7.5 star average NatHERS rating across the development and 6.5 star minimum for any individual apartment
- generous, high quality communal and private open space
- facilities that support sustainable and active transport
Design intent plans
We know how important it is to pick the right Future Home design for your site.
Design intent plans are concept plans that give a sense of the look and feel of the apartments. Design intent plans are free to download and will help you to choose the right design for your site and needs. The design intent plans are available to download under each of the designs.
Future Homes designs and exemplar designs are the same thing, the names are used inter-changeably with ‘exemplar design’ predominately used in technical documentation.
Please note that the mix of apartment types (1-bedroom, 2-bedroom, etc.) in Future Homes designs are not fixed, you can adapt your design to have any combination of apartment types, so long as you meet our mandatory standards.
Design A
The architects
Design Strategy Architecture with IncluDesign.
Architect’s statement
Future Homes design A by Design Strategy Architecture with IncluDesign is a series of urban, architectural, landscape, environmentally sustainable, design and cost effective design strategies that work together to generate high quality, medium density living.
The scheme consists of 3 key design elements:
- a well-sized communal courtyard
- a welcoming threshold garden
- strategically located communal stairs.
All elements are designed to support interactions between the residents and neighbourhood and respond to contextual conditions.
Design intent plans
Design B
The architect
LIAN Architects
Architect’s statement
Future Homes Design B by LIAN architects is inspired by the qualities inherent in suburban living and the single-family home. By maximising private amenity with generous space, abundant natural light and seamless connections to large, private open spaces, this scheme overlays these qualities into a new denser form.
Design intent plans
Design C
The architect
McGregor Westlake Architecture
Architect’s statement
Future Homes Design C by McGregor Westlake Architecture has been designed to consolidate and minimise its footprint, to maximise the surrounding deep soil, landscape and open space. The layout of apartments has focused on capturing northern light and prioritising the outlook for the maximum number of apartments, with an open-air ‘gallery’ circulation strategy encouraging interaction between residents. The rear yard is intended to create an indigenous forest and landscape corridor, when combined with neighbouring yards, to promote tree cover and bird life.
Design intent plans
Design D
The architect
Spiral Architects Lab
Architect’s statement
Future Homes Design D by Spiral Architects Lab is a design inspired by atomic structures.
Modular buildings, arranged in clusters, create a system that adapts to reflect their place and unique conditions of each site. This is supported by an internal and compositional logic that can scale up and down, from local site amalgamation to neighbourhood urban planning. The larger the site, the greener and denser a scheme can become.
Design intent plans
Inclusions
When you purchase a Future Homes design package, you receive a set of design development level plans which can be adapted to suit your site. We recommend using a professional of your choosing to adapt the designs.
Packages include:
- 3 different base layout options to adapt to your site:
- North-south orientation with at-grade car parking
- North-south orientation with basement car parking
- East-west orientation with at-grade car parking
- Example site plan including landscaping
- Floor plans at 1:100, showing the general apartment, circulation and parking
- Elevations and sections at 1:100, showing materials, general heights and clearances
- Apartment plans at 1:50 including floor areas, storage, accessibility response and breeze paths
- Window schedules, showing dimensions, glazing types and overlooking minimisation techniques
- Section and plan details illustrating design intent of key building junctions.
The package contains a materials schedule with guidance and information on the preferred material strategy for the scheme. Options and substitutions from the architects are also included.
Purchasing a plan gives you access to the streamlined planning process. If the design is adapted satisfactorily, planning approval can be granted as early as four months from purchase.
To ensure Future Homes are exemplary, mandatory planning controls are included in the Future Homes provision at Clause 53.24. These cannot be varied.
The 13 mandatory standards are:
- Gardens: Generous landscaped areas and canopy trees and room for deep soil planting
- Communal open space: Generous, accessible and a nice space for residents to foster a sense of community
- Solar access to communal open space: communal open space that is not significantly overshadowed and receives sunlight
- Sustainable: Homes that lead the state in environmentally sustainable design. The sustainability of Future homes will go above and beyond what is currently industry best practice*
- Adaptable: Homes that are adaptable over time, to change with a household’s needs*
- Accessible: Homes that are accessible, with wider entries, corridors, doors and larger bathrooms that allow space to move*
- Functional rooms: Rooms that are generous and efficient in size with layouts that work
- Room depths: Well proportioned rooms that have good access to daylight
- Light-filled bedrooms: Bedrooms will have good access to daylight
- Ventilated: Homes that are well ventilated and have through breezes*
- Storage: Adequate and convenient storage provided for all homes
- Car parking: At least 1 space per dwelling
- Bicycle parking: At least 1 space per dwelling, plus additional spaces for visitors*.
* Indicates above current standards.
Use the Building Future Homes: adaptation guide to adapt a design to a specific site – this includes guidance on costs, landscape, accessibility, waste and an ESD checklist.
For more information about the design responses, see part 2 of the Adaption guide.
Find out more about the adaptation guide
Terms of use
Purchase a Future Homes design
If you know which plan you want, you can purchase the plans online.
Create an account to purchase plans and manage your referral online.
Create an account
To find out more about purchasing a Future Homes design, email futurehomessales@delwp.vic.gov.au.
For enquires about planning and referrals, email futurehomes@delwp.vic.gov.au.
Page last updated: 13/11/23
