Handover is a time to celebrate what has been achieved together, the start of living a dream, and a time of letting go. Recently we visited this newly completed home we designed in Lenah Valley at that significant moment.

When first appointed, we, as architects, set out to understand our project brief comprising, on the one hand, our clients’ lifestyle dreams, values and priorities, and on the other, the opportunities and constraints presented by the site and the construction budget. As we progress through detailed design, local authority permit applications, and detailed documentation for construction, we revisit these criteria time and again in dialogue with our clients, to hone our ideas and develop the design in keeping with the project aspirations. More decisions follow during construction until, finally, at project completion, the builder hands over the keys and the moment arrives for our clients to move in. This is a transitory opportunity for us to review the uninhabited built outcome and to consider what we have achieved. For us it is a time of letting go, while being the start of our clients living the lives they have envisaged within their new home.

Later, we enjoy returning to the lived in homes we have designed to hear stories of how they’ve been occupied and dreams realised.