Learning. Engaging. Knowing. Our Acumen notes continue to provide knowledge and engagement to all levels of the profession, from students to experienced practitioners.
If you have missed an update via social media or e-news, see below a list of our most recent member newsletters:
- May 2025 update
- January 2025 update
- October 2024 update
- July 2024 update
- April 2024 update
- January 2024 update
- October 2023 update
- July 2023 update
- April 2023 update
- January 2023 update
- October 2022 update
- July 2022 update
- April 2022 update
- January 2022 update
- September 2021 update
- June 2021 update
- July 2020 update
- March 2020 update
Home
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Practice
- Alternative dispute resolution
- Business structure and planning
- Ethics
- Fees
- Human resources
- Indigenous matters in architectural practice
- Legislation
- Marketing and communications
- Office administration and manual structure
- Quality management
- Risk management and insurances
- Understanding work health and safety (WHS) legislation
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Project
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Agreements
- Agreements - principles
- Agreements for office and retail tenancy work
- Architect-Specialist Consultant Agreement 2017
- Avoiding personal contracts
- Client and architect agreements
- Client-generated agreements
- Fitness for purpose
- Legal person
- Novation
- Principles for balanced and insurable client-archite
- Variation to services
- BIM – Building information modelling
- Brief
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Building contracts
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ABIC contracts
- ABIC contracts – Australian Capital Territory
- ABIC contracts – New South Wales
- ABIC contracts – Northern Territory
- ABIC contracts – Queensland
- ABIC contracts – South Australia
- ABIC contracts –Tasmania
- ABIC contracts – Victoria
- ABIC contracts – Western Australia
- ABIC contracts - statutory approvals
- ABIC Basic Works BW 2018
- ABIC Commercial Cost Plus CP-2014 C
- ABIC contract works insurance
- ABIC SW 2018 H Schedule 2a – staged payments
- Australian Standards contracts
- Building contract - execution
- Building contract deposits
- Building contract insurances
- Contract preparation
- Contractual liability
- Cost-plus contracts: Considerations
- Particular persons
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Special Conditions for HIA Alterations Additions Renovations
- HIA ACT Residential Alterations and Additions
- HIA NSW Residential Renovations and Additions
- HIA NT Residential Alterations and Additions
- HIA Qld Alteration, Addition and Renovation
- HIA SA Alterations and Additions
- HIA Tasmanian Residential Building
- HIA Victorian Alterations, Additions and Renovations
- HIA WA Lump Sum Alterations and Additions
- Special Conditions for HIA New Homes Contracts
- Termination rights and insolvency events
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ABIC contracts
- Client and architect relationship
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Core architectural services
- Pre-design
- Concept design
- Design development
- Design considerations
- Material considerations
- Planning/Development application
- Construction documentation
- Contractor selection
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Contract administration
- Certificates
- Clerk of works
- Contract administration versus supervision
- Contractor's role in construction
- Extensions of time
- Latent conditions
- Mandatory inspections
- Practical completion
- Prevention Principle and the implied duty of cooperation
- Progress payments
- Remote sites - contract administration
- Security – bank guarantees and cash retention
- Substitutions
- Partial services
- Regulatory requirements
- Post construction
- Other architectural services
- Procurement
- Project bid
- Project control
- Specialist consultants
- Time records
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Agreements
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Resources
- Access design guide
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Client information notes
- Client note: Architects' fees
- Client note: Contingency sums
- Client note: Contractor variations resulting in a credit
- Client note: Copyright in architecture
- Client note: Insurance for work to existing buildings
- Client note: Managing your project costs
- Client note: Opening up and testing the works
- Client note: Practical completion and the final certificate
- Client note: Progress payments during construction
- Client note: Project supply chain and labour impacts
- Client note: Selecting an architect
- Client note: The independent role of the project manager
- Client note: Variations to construction scope
- Client note: What are an architect's moral rights?
- Client note: Your brief to your architect
- Construction industry legal comment
- COVID-19 project considerations
- Free legal reference service (FLRS)
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Guide letters
- Guide letter 1: Advice to client - conditions of engagement
- Guide letter 2: Confirmation to client
- Guide letter 3: Advice to client - specialist consultants
- Guide letter 4: Request to specialist consultants
- Guide letter 5: Advice to client
- Guide letter 6: Request to client for confirmation
- Guide letter 7: Confirmation - appointment of consultant
- Guide letter 8: Briefing of specialist consultant
- Guide letter 9: Recommendation to client - additional fees
- Guide letter 10: Site - request to client for information
- Guide letter 11: Advice to client - architects' fees due
- Guide letter 12: Secondary consultants' fee accounts
- Guide letter 13: Advice to client on authority conditions
- Guide letter 14: Advice to client at stage completion
- Guide letter 15: Advice to client - pre-contract progress
- Guide letter 16: Advice to client on implications of changes
- Guide letter 17: Recommendation to client - clerk of works
- Guide letter 18: Advice to client - building contract
- Guide letter 19: Confirmation to client - contract
- Guide letter 20: Pre-tender information
- Guide letter 21: Confirmation to client - tender details
- Guide letter 22: Tender assessment and report
- Guide letter 23: Successful tenderer - letter of acceptance
- Guide letter 24: Successful tenderer
- Guide letter 25: Unsuccessful tenderers - advice
- Guide letter 26: Insurance - request to contractor
- Guide letter 27: Clerk of works – employment advice
- Guide letter 28: Advice to client - execution of contract
- Guide letter 29: Recommendation to client - variations
- Guide letter 30: Advice to client - expenditure
- Guide letter 31: Advice to client - building progress
- Guide letter 32: Advice to client - contractor's breach
- Guide letter 33: Advice to client - works nearing completion
- Guide letter 34: Advice to contractor - practical completion
- Guide letter 35: Confirmation to client - defects
- Guide letter 36: Advice to contractor - defects
- Guide letter 37: Advice to client - final certificate
- Guide letter 38: Completion - thanking contractor
- Guide letter 39: Documenting a project from another practice
- Glossary of Terms
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Environment
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Case studies
- Urine-separation and dry composting toilet trial
- Bay Pavilions Arts + Aquatic
- Building T, Deakin University
- Commercial
- Conversion of a heritage-listed industrial building
- Kelvin Grove Urban Village
- Marrickville Library
- Newcastle CSIRO Energy Centre
- Post occupancy evaluation of evaporative cooling
- QUT Peter Coaldrake Education Precinct
- Residential
- The Erskine Building, Christchurch
- Urine-separation and dry composting
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Energy
- Cutting lifetime residential greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
- Embodied carbon in buildings
- Drivers of energy and water efficiency in commercial office buildings
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Energy saving design
- A guide to daylighting of buildings
- A solar atlas for Tasmania
- Airtightness and thermal bridging in buildings
- Best practice in lighting
- Construction details for cool temperate climates
- Daylighting of buildings
- Double-skin facades
- Evaluating advanced facade systems for commercial buildings
- Passivhaus: low energy buildings in Australasia
- Properties and rating systems for glazings, windows and skylights (including atria)
- Residential passive design for temperate climates
- Thermal mass and insulation for temperate climates
- Thermal mass for cool temperate climates
- Thermal mass in building design
- Thermal performance in a dry temperate climate
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Energy saving technologies
- Artificial lighting design
- Adjusting building thermostats for environmental gains
- Building thermostats – issues
- Building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV)
- Chilled ceilings and beams
- Considerations for residential appliances and equipment
- Low-energy hot water systems
- Operating a building
- Photovoltaic cells – how they work
- The legal right to solar access
- Implementing energy efficiency
- Life cycle energy analysis
- Designing, managing and retrofitting non-residential buildings to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
- Revisiting energy efficiency in commercial buildings
- Ventilation
- Environment glossary
- Equity
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Health and happiness
- Biophilic design: an introduction for designers
- Design for minimal radiation exposure
- Designing user-friendly passive buildings
- Green buildings and productivity
- Health and productivity in sustainable buildings
- Indoor environment quality
- Light pollution
- Mental landscapes
- Protecting against solar UVR
- The shade audit
- Urban air quality
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Materials
- Building materials selection – greenhouse strategies
- Comparative service life assessment of window systems
- Concrete and sustainability
- Green specifying
- Lead hazards in construction – a designer's guide
- Life cycle assessment (LCA)
- Low CO2 Concrete
- Phase change materials – overview
- Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) – its use in construction
- Strategies and resources for material selection
- Straw bale construction
- Sustainable housing using lightweight cellular concrete
- The environmental impact of building materials
- Timber and wood
- Waste management
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Place
- Climate
- GIS and remote sensing for transport
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Habitat and ecology
- Biodiversity and the built environment
- Birds and buildings
- Ecological connectivity design strategies
- Green roofs – understanding their benefits for Australia
- Green roofs for energy efficiency
- Living walls – a way to green the built environment
- Measuring site biodiversity for sustainable development
- Architecture’s role in the repair of the natural environment
- Roof and facade gardens
- Vegetation and habitat conservation – a strategic framework
- Infrastructure and transportation
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Land use
- Architecture, planning and food
- Erosion and sediment control
- Lend Lease and sustainability
- Land resource assessment
- Permaculture introduction and urban farming
- Permaculture principles and application
- Planning the green city
- Site planning and design for bushfire
- Sustainability in metropolitan planning
- Sustainable communities
- Towards sustainable urbanism
- Urban planning for sustainability
- Physical activity links to healthcare costs and productivity
- Planning for transit oriented development
- Predicting transport greenhouse gases
- Remote area building and sustainable development
- Sustainable metropolitan transport
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Process
- Beyond carbon neutrality
- Building environmental performance assessment
- Domestic building energy assessment
- Marketing ecologically sustainable design skills
- Optimising environmental performance
- Rating systems
- Regenerative design approaches
- Residential retrofitting
- Section J and commercial building facade design: NCC 2022
- Sustainability and building information modelling (BIM)
- Sustainability framework for practice
- Sustainable design – a client briefing
- Systems thinking
- The role of emotion and logic in sustainable design
- Understanding buildings in operation
- Understanding quantification
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Water
- Embodied water in construction
- On-site domestic wastewater treatment and reuse
- Practice of water sensitive urban design
- Raingardens and bioretention tree pits
- Sustainable water use
- Water conservation and harvesting in Adelaide
- Water sensitive urban design – an overview
- Water sensitive urban design thus far
- Wetlands, storage and reuse system
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Case studies
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Notepacks
- Budgets and cost control notepack
- Building procurement notepack
- Business continuity
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Construction documentation notepack
- ABIC contracts - statutory approvals
- Accessible adult change facilities
- Approval processes for planning and construction
- Australian Standards
- Condensation in Buildings Handbook
- Construction drawings
- DDA - the Premises Standards, BCA and alternative solutions
- External stairs and ramps
- Managing teams
- National Construction Code (NCC)
- Non-complying building products
- Quality control checklist
- Referencing standard documents
- Safety in design FAQs
- Safety in design guide
- Section J and commercial building facade design: NCC 2022
- Specification writing
- Termite management
- Trade package documentation
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COVID-19 notepack
- Client note: Project supply chain and labour impacts
- COVID-19 contract related FAQs
- COVID-19 project considerations
- COVID-19 risks and contract options
- COVID-19 site inspection considerations
- Delays in the supply of materials
- Flexible working arrangements
- Guide letter 16: Advice to client on implications of changes
- Health and happiness
- Leave entitlements and obligations
- Mental health in the profession
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Disaster response notepack
- Bushfire or pro bono work – special conditions CAA2019
- Common risks for architects
- Designing to heal – part A
- Designing to heal – part B
- Development in bushfire prone areas
- Heat stress resistant residential design in Australia
- Pro bono or reduced fee services
- Projects in bushfire-prone areas
- Site planning and design for bushfire
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Embodied energy notepack
- Comparative service life assessment of window systems
- Residential appliances and equipment
- Cutting lifetime residential GHG emissions
- Design for disassembly
- Ecological waste
- Embodied carbon in buildings
- Life cycle energy analysis
- Material selection for waste minimisation
- Sustainability and building information modelling (BIM)
- Thermal mass in building design
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National Construction Code (NCC) 2022 notepack
- Accessible adult change facilities
- Accessible entry
- Airtightness and thermal bridging in buildings
- Residential appliances and equipment
- Cutting lifetime residential GHG emissions
- National Construction Code (NCC)
- Performance Solutions
- Performance Solutions in fire engineering
- Residential sustainability rating tools
- Section J and commercial building facade design: NCC 2022
- Site planning and design for bushfire
- When to engage a fire safety engineer
- NSCA 2021 notepack
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Office manual notepack
- Branding notepack
- Business planning notepack
- Company profile notepack
- Contracts notepack
- Digital data processes notepack
- Environment notepack
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Fee notepack
- 2024 Client Architect Agreement (CAA2024)
- Client and architect agreements
- Client note: Architects' fees
- Determining fees for small projects
- Fee calculation
- Fees
- Goods and services tax (GST)
- Guide letter 1: Advice to client - conditions of engagement
- Guide letter 11: Advice to client - architects' fees due
- Guide letter 2: Confirmation to client
- Guide letter 9: Recommendation to client - additional fees
- Low fees - implication for practices
- Partial services - fees
- Financial administration notepack
- Human resources (HR) notepack
- Information technology (IT) notepack
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Insurances and liability notepack
- Architects' liability
- Contractual liability
- Directors and officers insurance
- Duty to disclose liability
- Employee private commissions and liability
- Engagement of contract staff
- General practice insurance
- Liability for manufactured products
- Liability for negligence
- Limitation of liability
- Professional indemnity cover exclusions
- Professional indemnity insurance basics
- Professional indemnity insurance for architects
- Proportionate liability legislation
- Public liability
- Risk management and insurances
- Letters notepack
- Marketing material notepack
- New work notepack
- Premises and practice organisation notepack
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Project documentation notepack
- Client note: Practical completion and the final certificate
- Construction drawings
- Contract administration
- Core architectural services
- Guide letter 20: Pre-tender information
- Guide letter 22: Tender assessment and report
- Guide letter 23: Successful tenderer - letter of acceptance
- Guide letter 24: Successful tenderer - RFI
- Guide letter 25: Unsuccessful tenderers - advice
- Guide letter 37: Advice to client - final certificate
- Practical completion
- Quality control checklist
- Specification writing
- Staged practical completion
- Tenders - calling
- Tenders - receiving and selecting
- Projects notepack
- Quality management notepack
- Risk notepack
- Specialist consultant notepack
- Work health and safety (WHS) notepack
- Selecting products and materials
- Social media notepack
- Starting a practice notepack
- Student SONA notepack