Yvonne Svensson
Registered Architect In Adelaide
Environmental sustainability and practical construction are important considerations in Yvonne’s design approach. Her extensive knowledge of construction helps ensure her designs are both beautiful and practical.
Yvonne lives in a renovated 1920s Californian bungalow in Adelaide with her husband and their two sons, giving her a personal appreciation of the opportunities and challenges involved in adapting character homes for modern living.
Yvonne is the principal architect responsible for design, client communication, coordination with consultants, Council correspondence and project delivery.
“I look forward to creating a beautiful home for you.”
– Yvonne Svensson
Benefits of Choosing Architect Yvonne Svensson in Adelaide
- An architectural practice specialising in residential design.
- Extensive experience in custom homes, energy-efficient and sustainable homes, heritage homes, townhouses, unit developments and construction management.
- Extensive knowledge of local council and state planning requirements across Adelaide and South Australia.
- Every home is individually designed around your needs, lifestyle and site.
- As a registered architect, Yvonne undertakes ongoing professional development and maintains professional indemnity insurance, providing clients with the reassurance of a high professional standard.
- An experienced Architect has a good understanding of construction rates. Ultimately the cost will be determined by an estimator, so the more detailed drawings they have to price from, the more accurate the pricing.
- Read what some of Yvonne’s previous clients have to say.
A Testimonial of a Stress-Free Architectural Home Design
Yvonne is really professional and great with her communication. She designed our new house according to our ideas but also gave her advice if the idea is unrealistic. She’s patient with us as we changed our mind so many times, including a total redraw. She is also our project manager, which makes dealing with builder and build our own house while both working full time possible and much less stressed. I’ll highly recommend her to my friends and family.
Cindy
Happy Client Testimonial: Experiencing Architectural Excellence in Adelaide
I would highly recommend Yvonne Svensson Architectural Services without a moments hesitation. Last year I bought a house in South Australia, I live in Victoria. The house is in great condition but I wanted to add some personal touches – new kitchen, swimming pool, BBQ area, new floors, etc. Yvonne’s company came up in several searches and always had excellent reviews.
I spoke to three architects and from my first (virtual) meeting, I felt confident that Yvonne was someone who really listened and heard my ideas and requirements. Over the next weeks and months this proved to be justified. Yvonne was so easy to work with – all done virtually because of Covid – she added excellent ideas and thoughts and was always trying to think how we could make use of what is there, so as to reduce costs.
The end result are some wonderful plans that will make this a perfect home for me and my family – everyone is excited to see the end result! Yvonne has now submitted the plans to council. I have owned several properties over the years, and spent the last 7 years renovating my home in Melbourne so I have had plenty of experience with commissioning services, I know how valuable a good service is and how much pain a poor service can give you! Yvonne Svensson Architectural Services is definitely a service I would put in my “excellent” bucket.
Yvonne provided an excellent service and work diligently to ensure everything was provided on time to ensure a strict deadline was met. Yvonne listened to what we wanted and provided excellent advice on the design of our renovations. Yvonne thoroughly explained each step that was required from concept design through to builders drawings.
We are very happy with Yvonne’s services and would happily recommend her to others looking to renovate their home.
Many architects have no problem in spending their clients’ money by over specifying and over complicating their projects. Yvonne is always conscious of this, and is able to produce quality designs on a range of architectural styles.
As a Project Manager, I have worked with Yvonne now for a few years, and I refer my clients to her whenever the opportunity arises.
I would encourage anyone looking to engage an Architect to avoid the large firms and the exorbitant fees they are known for, and look to engage in independent such as Yvonne.
I would recommend Yvonne to anyone looking to build something tailor made or any other project that requires more than off the shelf design.
I have attached a floor plan of a residential property that has been completed. The people who live in these homes have all commented on the beauty and functionality of the design.
Architect Yvonne Svensson
About Us
Although having Swedish parents, architect Yvonne Svensson was born and raised in Adelaide. With over 25 years’ experience, Yvonne has taken a hands-on approach since graduating in architecture from the University of South Australia. This ability to ‘roll up her sleeves’ is explained by her father being a carpenter and taking his daughter to building sites from a young age – from initially seeing him construct the frames of a house (First Fix) to later using his talents to create doors, windows, architraves and skirting boards – the latter known as Second Fix.
The South Australian Housing Trust
Although Yvonne was keen to learn the more theoretical concepts of architecture at university, she was drawn to the fundamentals – to the more practical side, working with specialist consultants. Her understanding of the building process as much as that of the design, led her to working for a number of years with the South Australian Housing Trust (2001-2007). While many graduates veered towards working on high-end housing, for Yvonne there was great satisfaction in designing public housing for those with considerably lesser means. But working with reduced budgets wasn’t seen as producing an inferior product – rather it meant working more efficiently with less. Yvonne applied these skills to detached housing on small allotments, as well as units, townhouses and apartments.
Establishing a Practice
With this valuable experience in hand, Yvonne decided to establish her own practice in 2010. As with many new practices, the work at first tended to be modest in scale – at least until word-of-mouth got out. And after completing a renovation and an extension to a 1930s bungalow, it’s been a steady flow of work ever since. Feedback from clients over the years has often included ‘how easy she is to speak with’ and not arriving with ‘preconceived ideas’ about how the project should unfold. Being open to ideas and appreciative of timeframes to deliver a house, be it new or a renovation, is as paramount to its success as the end results. Yvonne has also designed a number of projects in the commercial sector such as small office developments and retail stores.
Process
An initial chat leads to a thorough inspection of a house, or in the case of a new dwelling, the site and surrounds. While Yvonne has some initial ideas, she’s always keen to ‘tease out’ those of the client(s). She’s also known for her ‘one stop’ approach, taking care of the early administrative work such as applying for town planning or building applications.
Things Less Obvious
Existing spaces may appear relatively tight for clients. But, as pointed out by Yvonne, this can sometimes be attributed to simply badly planned spaces or that they have not been designed to allow for a sense of flow or connectivity between rooms. Sometimes the solution is to remove walls that aren’t load bearing. Other factors may come down to access and suggesting that just because a driveway has always been on one side of a property doesn’t mean that it should remain there forever – as long as there aren’t street obstacles such as power poles or street furniture.
Method
Although without a fixed method of working, Yvonne tends to construct visual spaces in her mind as much as working with 3D programs – understanding what’s physically possible or a site’s ‘buildability’. Regularly working with timber, one of her favourite materials, she also enjoys its flexible properties, being able to be modified on site – in the case of built-in joinery and the finer details – a talent inherited from her father.
Hallmarks
While every client and project is unique, there are certain hallmarks to Yvonne’s work. These include generous ceiling heights that create a greater sense of space, thoughtful connections between rooms and an element of surprise — designs that meet the client’s requirements while offering something more.