Multi-residential

Twenty years
working inside
apartment buildings.

Renovations, upgrades and common property works — and the strata process that governs all of it.

Every apartment project runs through an owners corporation, a strata committee or a building manager. We have been working inside that process for the whole of a career, and it is the part most architects find hardest.

The part nobody warns you about

An apartment renovation is not a small house. The design question is usually the easy part. The difficulty is that the works sit inside a legal structure — common property, by-laws, an approval that has to be resolved at a meeting, and a set of obligations that outlive the renovation by decades.

A lot owner who does not understand that ends up with a refused application or an approval that is defective. An owners corporation that does not understand it ends up carrying a maintenance liability it never agreed to.

The category an application falls into and the consequence it carries for the building
are two different questions. Most disputes come from assuming they are the same one.

That distinction is the whole of it. Work can be a statutory minor renovation, decided by the committee on an ordinary resolution, and still put a wet area over a bedroom, load a riser beyond its capacity, or breach fire separation. It can equally look alarming and turn out to be cosmetic work needing nothing at all.

What we do

  • Apartment renovations. Design and documentation for lot works, from kitchen and bathroom refurbishment to full reconfiguration.
  • Whole-building upgrades. Acting for the owners corporation — fire safety, egress, building services and common property works across the whole scheme.
  • Approval pathway. Establishing whether works are cosmetic, a minor renovation, or require a special resolution — and what development approval, if any, sits alongside that.
  • Works by-laws. Setting out what the by-law needs to control, for the scheme’s solicitor to draft.
  • DBP Act obligations. Identifying where works engage a building element, and what regulated designs and declarations follow.
  • Consultant coordination. Structural, hydraulic, acoustic, fire — knowing which are needed, and when.
We are not certifiers. A registered certifier issues certificates and carries out statutory inspections. We read the proposal and identify what it does to the building and what it triggers — including whether a certifier needs to be appointed at all, which is frequently the question nobody has asked.

Buildings we have worked on

Renovation and upgrade works across strata schemes in Sydney — acting for owners corporations, lot owners and their managing agents.

Spicer Architecture
21 Blair Street, Bondi Beach (SP 9613)Kincoppal, Elizabeth Bay (SP 16857)Hordern Place, Potts Point (SP 22353)The Harrington, The RocksTowns Place, Walsh BayOne Circular Quay3 Buckhurst Avenue, Point Piper (SP 15482)1A Longworth Lane, Point Piper (SP 1094)11 The Esplanade, Elizabeth Bay24 Sheehy Street, Glebe (SP 10283)137 Ocean Street, Woollahra3 Surfside Avenue, Clovelly
Multi-residential experience

Across two decades in practice, including work undertaken at the Quinlan Group.

Kingsclere, Potts PointThe Connaught, SydneyRockwall, Potts PointEdgeview, Surry HillsAzzuro BluNorth Finger Wharf, WoolloomoolooHopewood Gardens, Darling PointFisher Apartments, NewportConley, Darling PointIvyCecily Street Townhouses125 Hall Street, BondiLe Development, West Ryde1439 Botany Road, Botany

Work undertaken by Jonathan Spicer as Associate at the Quinlan Group (previously ArcEngine), 2006–2017.

For owners corporations and strata managers

Since July 2025, a renovation application left undetermined for three months is taken to be approved, and committee members carry a statutory duty of due care in making that decision. Approval records must be kept for ten years.

We provide independent reviews of renovation applications for owners corporations — an architect’s assessment of what proposed works will do to the building and what approvals they require, written so a committee can act on it and minute it.

Start a conversation

Whether you are a lot owner planning works, an owners corporation facing an application, or a managing agent watching a clock — tell us the building and the scheme number and we will tell you what is involved.

Enquire Commercial

Spicer Architecture — Nominated Architect Jonathan Spicer. Registered Architect: NSW 8851 · ACT 2959 · Victoria VIC00291.
Registered Design Practitioner (Architectural) and Registered Principal Design Practitioner under the Design and Building Practitioners Act 2020 (NSW).

Office +61 2 8365 2489 · Mobile +61 404 139 557

Information on this page about the strata legislative framework is general information only and is not legal advice. Jonathan Spicer is trained in expert witness practice in construction and architecture, and provides assessments, recommendations and reporting within that field. He is also a Juris Doctor candidate, with completion expected in 2027, and is not an Australian legal practitioner. Spicer Architecture does not provide legal services — where a matter requires them, we identify it and refer it on. Questions about a particular scheme, by-law or application should be directed to a qualified legal practitioner.