Use Design Statements as a tool to support discussions between the designer, the client and the council.

Incorporating design statements into your design process is an efficient way of producing resource consent material at the same time as producing drawings to facilitate the design development with the client.

The information required to be included in design statement drawings are based on a best practice design process, and should not necessitate a significant additional workload for the designer. Most of the diagrams, illustrations and information are fundamental to explaining to the client how the designer has responded to their brief.  Formalising these into a schedule of drawings that can be presented to Council for consent will achieve significant benefits in the Council's understanding of why design decisions have been made, avoiding delays due to requests for further information.

For example the Opportunities and Constraints diagram can provide an effective way of illustrating spatially for the client the key issues that the designer is dealing with, helping to inform the clients understanding of what is possible.

The Design Response diagrams, drawings and illustrations are also fundamental in explaining the proposals to the Client.​