Three documents issued before engagement. No fee.
How a project moves from first sketch to occupation certificate.
Which approval applies at a specific address, who grants it, and how long it takes there. All states.
A brief built room by room against a build rate and a budget.
Everything we have issued you, in one place, at an address that never changes.
projects.spicerarchitecture.com — outside Sanity, outside this repo, and outside the pull-request workflow. Its gate is a Cloudflare Pages Function that runs at the edge before any content is served.curl it. There is no client-side fix for this. If this mock is ever wired up with a JavaScript password check, every client document behind it is public.Enter the email address we correspond with. We will send you a six-digit code.
No password to remember. The code expires after use. If you have trouble, call the studio on +61 2 8365 2489.
Bookmark this address — it does not change between projects or documents.
/54-epping, not /chin-lee. Surnames do not go in URLs that may be forwarded, previewed or indexed.npx wrangler pages deploy . — not the Cloudflare dashboard uploader. The dashboard does not compile the functions/ directory, so the gate would silently not exist and every client page would be public with no error and no warning.
Since July 2025, a strata committee that does not refuse a minor renovation in writing within three months has approved it. We assess what a proposal will do to the building and what approvals it needs, and report to the owners corporation. Five business days.
How the review sits alongside your existing process, what it does for your exposure on the three-month clock, and how a scheme adopts it. Costs the scheme nothing.
What committee members are now personally responsible for, what the assessment covers, and how it protects the decision you have to make. No cost to the scheme.
For a lot owner, or an architect or builder acting for one, directed here by their managing agent. Commence the independent review report to be submitted with a renovation application, as stipulated by the committee or the scheme's by-laws.
What each level of assessment covers, side by side, and what it costs. Four levels — from a 48-hour desk review to a coordinated review with engineering and legal input.
Spicer Architecture has spent twenty years working in Class 2 buildings — apartment renovations, heritage conversions and remedial work across Sydney's older stock. We know what a moved wet area does to the slab below, because we have detailed it, documented it and built it.
What will these works do to the building?
The physical consequence — structure, water, sound, services, fire, and the lots above and below.
What else do these works need before they can proceed?
The approval pathway — the statutory category, the consents, the certificates, the consultants and the by-law.
A committee usually gets an answer to neither. Both are set out below.
What the works will actually do to the fabric, and to the people living above and below.
Everything the works will need before they can lawfully proceed — most of which never appears in the application.
Work can be a minor renovation in statutory terms — decided by the committee on an ordinary resolution — and still put a new wet area over someone's bedroom, load a riser that is already at capacity, or breach a fire separation. It can equally look alarming on a drawing and turn out to be cosmetic work needing no approval at all.
The statutory category tells the committee how to decide. It says nothing about what it is deciding. We report on both, separately and plainly, so the committee can see where a technically minor application carries a consequence worth conditioning — and where an alarming-looking one does not.
Our reports set out findings, risks and recommended conditions so the committee can make its decision on the record. Where a matter is legal rather than architectural, we say so and refer it to the scheme's solicitor.
Since 1 July 2025, where a by-law delegates minor renovation approval to the strata committee, the committee must give written reasons for refusal within three months — or the work is deemed approved. Somebody has to monitor that deadline on every application across the portfolio. That somebody is you.
You already receive the application, check it for completeness, and put it to the committee. Nothing about that changes. What we add is the question your process was never designed to answer: what will these works actually do to the building?
Most applications do not need us. The ones that do are recognisable — a bathroom being enlarged, a toilet moving, a wall coming out, floor coverings changing, a service being relocated. Send those, and get a written assessment back inside five business days.
Forty-eight hours for a triage, five business days for a full assessment. We will never be the reason a scheme runs out of time.
Your paper, your client relationship, our assessment behind it. If you would rather the committee saw only your brand, that is entirely workable.
We are architects. We hold no strata managing agent licence and have no interest in one. Your relationship with the scheme is not at risk.
We will not accept a design engagement from any applicant whose application we have assessed. It is a term of every engagement.
Keep your existing renovation form and process. When something concerns you, send the applicant our submission link. That is the whole integration.
For schemes with real volume we build a Renovation Protocol — application form, submission requirements, decision matrix and a compliant ten-year register.
A committee is a group of neighbours. It is rarely a group of architects, engineers and lawyers. Yet since July 2025 its members personally owe a statutory duty of due care in the decisions they make — and a renovation application that is not refused in writing within three months is approved whether the committee understood it or not.
An owner moves a toilet three metres. It is still inside their own bathroom, so it looks like nothing. But the new waste line means new penetrations through a slab that is common property, not part of the lot — and if it leaks in fifteen years, the owners corporation carries the duty to repair the common property, not the owner who moved it.
An owner enlarges a bathroom by a metre. Now there is a wet area sitting above the living room of the apartment below. Nothing in the application says so, because the applicant is not looking at the floor below. Somebody has to.
None of this means applications should be refused. Most are entirely reasonable and come back approvable with sensible conditions. It means the committee needs to know which is which — and to have that in writing before it votes.
Nothing.
The assessment contribution is borne by the applicant as a condition of having their application considered — the same principle by which a council's assessment is funded by the applicant's DA fee, and by which your scheme already recovers the cost of by-law drafting and registration.
The committee receives an independent expert assessment at no cost to the administrative fund and no levy on other owners.
We do not approve anything. Only the owners corporation can approve works — the decision is yours, and it stays yours. Our report is evidence for that decision, not a substitute for it.
We do not give legal advice. Where an application raises a question about your by-laws, your rights or your obligations, we identify it plainly and refer it to the scheme's solicitor. We are architects, and we stay inside that.
We do not act for the applicant. We will not accept a design engagement from any owner whose application we have assessed, and we do not discuss applications with applicants — everything goes through your managing agent.
For a lot owner, or an architect or builder acting for one. Select your building and attach your documents. We do not ask you to categorise your own works — reading the documents and telling you what they trigger is the review.
We assess applications for schemes that have engaged us. That is what keeps the assessment independent.
A modest bathroom can carry more risk to a building than a large but straightforward alteration. The level is chosen by what needs answering, not by the size of the job.
| 01Desk Review$650incl. GST48 hours | 02Lot Works Review$1,750incl. GST5 business days | 03Lot Works Review + Site Inspection$3,300incl. GST10 business days | 04Comprehensive ReviewQuotedfrom ~$6,000By arrangement | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The paperwork question | ||||
| Classification against the statutory categories — cosmetic, minor renovation, or special resolution | ||||
| Completeness check against the scheme's own requirements | ||||
| Approval pathway — consent or CDC, construction certificate, DBP Act obligations, heritage, works by-law | ||||
| Written recommendation and next steps for the committee | ||||
| Wording for a referral, an information request, or a refusal for incompleteness — ready to minute | ||||
| Wording for approval subject to specific recommended conditions — only possible where the conditions have been assessed | ||||
| What the works do to the building — and what they trigger | ||||
| Slab penetrations — whether common property is affected, and what certification the owners corporation should require | ||||
| Wet areas relocated over habitable rooms below — identified from the drawings, with the consequence if it fails | ||||
| Whether an acoustic report is required, and against which standard — NCC, consent authority, or the scheme’s by-laws | ||||
| Whether the works engage structure, and whether a structural engineer’s assessment is required | ||||
| Whether services or riser capacity are affected, and what specialist input that calls for | ||||
| Whether fire separation or egress may be affected, and whether specialist assessment is required | ||||
| Risk-rated findings with recommended conditions | ||||
| Annotated markups of the applicant's own drawings | ||||
| On site | ||||
| Attendance at the lot | ||||
| Attendance at the apartment below, where access is available | ||||
| Common property, risers, access and egress observed and recorded | ||||
| Photographic record | ||||
| Coordination | ||||
| Structural engineering input, coordinated and integrated | ||||
| Legal opinion — the solicitor is engaged directly by the owners corporation; we coordinate and integrate it | ||||
What we bring is twenty years of construction and design experience in Class 2 buildings, applied to reading a proposal and identifying what it will do to the building and what it triggers — including whether a certifier needs to be appointed at all, which is frequently the question nobody has asked.
We do not certify structural adequacy, acoustic performance, waterproofing, fire safety or services capacity. Those are determined by the relevant registered specialist. Our reports say when one is required, what question they should be asked, and what the owners corporation should have in hand before approving.
A Desk Review answers the decisive question quickly and cheaply — what the works are, who can approve them, and whether the application can be decided at all. Often that is the end of the matter. Where it is not, the review tells you which level the works actually call for, and that level is quoted before it is started.
Anything involving a wet area, a floor penetration, a wall being removed or a change of floor covering needs the building question answered before the owners corporation can properly decide. Starting at 02 saves a step.
Documentation for buildings of the 1960s and 70s is frequently absent, inaccurate, or silent on sixty years of subsequent work. Where the drawings cannot be trusted, attendance is the only honest way to answer the question.
Where an application is disputed between owners, involves structure, or will set the standard for every similar application in the building, the coordinated engineering and legal position is worth having before the decision rather than after it.
The contribution is borne by the applicant as a condition of having the application considered — the same route by which a scheme already recovers by-law drafting and registration costs. Payable on submission, and not refundable and not dependent on the outcome.
Where the documents show the works fall into a higher category, we notify the managing agent and set out what that level involves and what it costs, for approval, before any assessment begins. We do not proceed at a level that cannot answer the question, and we do not charge for a level that was not needed.
For managing agents, building managers and owners corporations. If you are a lot owner whose scheme has not engaged us, send the building's address and we will approach the managing agent — we cannot discuss an individual application with you directly.
Fitout, upgrade and compliance work delivered against a brief, a budget and a date.
Twenty years of commercial and institutional projects — aged care, workplaces, retail and hospitality, cinemas, civic and education buildings. Repeatable delivery, documented properly, on the programme the client set.
Commercial work rewards a different discipline to housing. The brief is written down. The programme is fixed. The measure of a good consultant is whether the documentation is complete, the approvals land when they are supposed to, and the contractor can build from the drawings without a fortnight of RFIs.
That is the work we do, and it is the work we are expanding.
Where the work has been, and where it continues.
Sector capability is held across the practice, not by one person. Our team brings recent health and education experience alongside the principal’s twenty years across commercial, institutional and civic work.
Residential aged care and retirement living — independent living units, common facilities and staged upgrades to occupied buildings. Work we are actively expanding, and where the National Aged Care Design Principles now set the reference.
Office fitout, tenancy upgrades and end-of-trip facilities — bike storage, showers, lockers and the compliance that comes with them.
Shopping centres, restaurants, cafés and hotels. Short programmes, tight budgets, and a fitout that has to open on the day it says it will.
Cinemas, lounges and premium seating, and the recreational facilities that sit alongside them.
Schools, libraries, early learning and training facilities. Work programmed around terms and holidays, because that is the only window there is. Capability held across the practice, including staff with recent sector experience.
Council and government facilities, community centres, emergency services and sporting infrastructure.
Warehouses, distribution and light industrial — including tenancy fitout within larger estates.
Superyacht marina and waterfront facilities, including work in and around working harbour sites.
Day surgeries, consulting suites and clinical fitout. Major hospital work sits earlier in the practice history and now informs our aged care and clinical fitout work rather than being pursued for its own sake.
* Work undertaken by Jonathan Spicer as Associate at the Quinlan Group (previously ArcEngine), 2006–2017.
Some clients do not have one building. They have forty, and they need the same thing done in all of them, to the same standard, without forty separate conversations.
We have run that work — a standard design adapted site by site, documented consistently, approved through whichever authority each site sits under, and delivered on a rolling programme.
Food service facilities rolled out across hospital sites — each one a live clinical environment with its own constraints, delivered to a common standard.
National tenancy rollout programme, documented once and adapted per site.
Cinema and premium seating upgrades across a national circuit.
Tell us the building, the programme and the budget. We will tell you what is feasible and what it will take — before anyone commits to anything.
Renovations, upgrades and common property works — and the strata process that governs all of it.
Every apartment project runs through an owners corporation, a strata committee or a building manager. We have been working inside that process for the whole of a career, and it is the part most architects find hardest.
An apartment renovation is not a small house. The design question is usually the easy part. The difficulty is that the works sit inside a legal structure — common property, by-laws, an approval that has to be resolved at a meeting, and a set of obligations that outlive the renovation by decades.
A lot owner who does not understand that ends up with a refused application or an approval that is defective. An owners corporation that does not understand it ends up carrying a maintenance liability it never agreed to.
That distinction is the whole of it. Work can be a statutory minor renovation, decided by the committee on an ordinary resolution, and still put a wet area over a bedroom, load a riser beyond its capacity, or breach fire separation. It can equally look alarming and turn out to be cosmetic work needing nothing at all.
Renovation and upgrade works across strata schemes in Sydney — acting for owners corporations, lot owners and their managing agents.
Across two decades in practice, including work undertaken at the Quinlan Group.
Work undertaken by Jonathan Spicer as Associate at the Quinlan Group (previously ArcEngine), 2006–2017.
Since July 2025, a renovation application left undetermined for three months is taken to be approved, and committee members carry a statutory duty of due care in making that decision. Approval records must be kept for ten years.
We provide independent reviews of renovation applications for owners corporations — an architect's assessment of what proposed works will do to the building and what approvals they require, written so a committee can act on it and minute it.
Whether you are a lot owner planning works, an owners corporation facing an application, or a managing agent watching a clock — tell us the building and the scheme number and we will tell you what is involved.