Ruth Newman Architect

21/08/2026

Who said disabled access was difficult?

Look at this fabulous design for a beach boardwalk!

Naturally it would have added cost to the build but well worth it - such a great addition to beachside architecture.

20/08/2026

On this day, Australians all over the country come together and, for all that cancer takes, Daffodil Day gives hope.

Daffodil Day aims to raise money for the Cancer Council in order to support people impacted by cancer and support cancer research that will save lives.

For more information on how to get involved and donate, visit the Daffodil Day website
https://vist.ly/5ff26

08/08/2026

It's International Cat Day!

A simple moment for our resident (home) office cat Teddy! Word on the street is that he is loving his mum's new WFH arrangements 😉🐈‍⬛

07/08/2026

The right call, made early, changes everything about a project.

People usually call when they think they know what they want. The brief feels settled, the budget's set. That's exactly when the decisions that shape the cost are getting locked in.

The front end is where it's decided. Before design. Before approvals. That's the work I do first, and it's the cheapest insurance in the whole project.

If you've got a project in your head, that's the moment to talk. New blog is live, link to read it is right here:
https://vist.ly/5dwij

28/07/2026

The catch with this house: before we drew a single new room, the site was already non-complying.

The original 1960s cottage was built to face its own back yard. Lovely for the era, wrong for a young family. No clear front door. It turned its back on the street. And the western sun poured straight into the living spaces all summer.

The owners wanted more space and a proper street entry. The problem was the existing footprint already sat outside the current setback rules. On paper that left two bad options: demolish and rebuild something compliant, or shrink the brief and hand back most of the space they came for.

We did neither.

We held the existing footprint exactly as it was, and found the extra space without extending the building's reach on the land. Floor space ratio complied. Landscape ratio complied. And because the footprint never moved, the neighbours' views and privacy stayed untouched.

That gave Council a variation it could approve. The setbacks didn't meet the standard, but the design met the purpose behind it. No overshadowing. No lost views. No lost privacy. No loss of garden.

A 1960s cottage facing the wrong way became a modern family home, with a real front door, protection from the western sun, and room to grow into. Same footprint it started on.

If you've got a home with potential but no clear direction, that's exactly where we start.

Full project story on the site. Link below.
https://vist.ly/5cpkp

24/07/2026

Peaceful break between meetings - one project needing a DA for a retaining wall in their backyard, and another investigating options for a lift in the house they built 50 years ago - always a variety of people needing advice 🏡

21/07/2026

Sydney Montessori School operates across fourteen separate land parcels. This project put new buildings on four of them at once.

The school was growing. High School was coming to the Gymea campus, and it needed the facilities to match: science labs, a commercial kitchen, flexible teaching spaces, offices, a 27-space carpark.

The easy answer is to treat each titled site as its own project. Cleaner to manage, simpler to document. It's also the wrong answer for a school, because a campus has to read and work as one continuous place, not a scatter of neighbouring lots.

So we designed the Science and Arts Buildings as a single piece of work across both sites. One campus. One architectural language. One strategy for how everything sat together.

That decision really got tested at Construction Certificate stage. The BCA reads fire separation off title boundaries, so two buildings owned by the same school get treated as if strangers own them. Standard rules would have forced a redesign of buildings the school had already approved.

We chased a performance solution instead. Working with the fire engineer and certifier to prove the fire safety outcomes were equal to or better than the standard path. It took longer, but protected the design and the whole expansion plan.

The buildings opened with full High School facilities across the campus, linked by raised crossings and improved footpaths. The productive landscape already living on the site, chook shed and fruit trees included, was relocated and protected rather than removed.

Two sites. Two buildings. One campus.

Full project story on the site. Link bwlo:
https://vist.ly/5bwtf

17/07/2026

For close to twenty years, this Fowler Road site went nowhere.

Illegal works. Unclear approvals. A build that stalled and never restarted. When our client bought it, they didn't want to live there. They wanted it resolved, DA approved, and back on the market.

Every instinct on a project like this says lodge something fast and start moving. We did the opposite.

We investigated first. What had actually been approved. What had been built outside that approval. And what had happened to the original certifier, which is where it nearly came undone. One director had retired in poor health. The other had passed away. The inspection records didn't exist in any form a private certifier could legally rely on.

So we took a path most people don't know exists: we applied to Council to be appointed Principal Certifier. Then we built a forensic record of the whole site, one Council could defend and a buyer could trust.

The result: 4.55 approved. 3D imagery showing the finished home. A site stuck for two decades sold at a significant profit, with a clean record and a clear route to completion.

Slow was the fast way.
Full project story on our site. Link below:
https://vist.ly/5bi54

15/07/2026

Yellow powdercoated numbers recently specified for one of our projects - fabulous finishing touch on the front wall of the house

Everyone here at PHN loves these custom Dulux Sunshine Yellow numbers 💛🌻🌙

11/07/2026

Your site can carry Aboriginal cultural heritage significance before you've drawn a single line.

It shows up as a note on a council map, not a conversation. And it's far cheaper to know now than after a DA is lodged.

I check the AHIMS register and council heritage records before design starts, not after. If a site's flagged, we prepare what's needed early, so it's already sorted by the time council refers the application.

A flagged site isn't a smaller project. It's a site condition, same as a slope or an easement. It gets designed around properly the first time.

This NAIDOC Week (50 Years of Deadly), it felt like the right week to talk about doing this properly, not just ticking a compliance box.

For the full breakdown of what it means for your DA, your design and your timeline: Head to the link below.
https://vist.ly/5aufb