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Building Designers in Victoria need to be registered as a registered building practitioner with the Victorian Building Authority (VBA), with Professional Indemnity Insurance in place, which needs to be renewed yearly. Drawings are needed to be prepared by a registered building practitioner for Building Permit approvals.

Draftsperson can be anyone who knows how to draw houses typically with Computer Added Design (CAD) software, they don’t need to be registered and can be engaged to do drawing work as long as they don’t need to be held accountable for their work, typically they are employed as contractors for Building Design or Architecture’s.

An Architect can provide the same service when it comes to residential developments, pricing can be more for Architects, some Architects have been known to price lower to stay competitive with the Building Designers.

The course for Diploma in Building Design for example was a 2 year course (it maybe 3 years now a days) which was more practical based system of education, they don’t get into history of building in euro and things like this which aren’t really relevant for your everyday Australian modern family home.

Architects are more qualified with knowledge of things such as design philosophies and such things to be considered specialists in design, and very important where a statement needs to be made and cost isn’t constrained, they also make allowances to spend more time with detailing elements at the concept stage, and to help out on site during the construction to make sure the home gets built as per the concept.

However education doesn’t have anything to do with an individual’s ability for design flare, you can either design something awesome or you can’t, spending a larger amount of time on anything would insure a better design outcome through process of elimination and great concept evolution and granted education would help, there’s still some really good Building Designers out there that can give Architects a run for their money so to speak!