Amaya Design Journal
Articles about lots, floor plans, construction budgets, infill rules, major renovations, additions, and permit preparation in Calgary and the surrounding area.
Browse by Project
Begin with the featured overview, then choose the article that matches the lot, budget, or design decision in front of you.
A practical path from choosing a property and setting a brief to resolving the floor plan, budget conversations, and residential drawing package.
Featured guide: Home Design in Calgary: How to Review a Floor Plan Before It Is FinalView GuidesGuidance for replacing or developing a home on an established Calgary lot, including privacy, daylight, parking, grade, approvals, and semi-detached planning.
Featured guide: What Is an Infill Home in Calgary? Site and Design GuideView GuidesA design-led look at site capacity, unit layouts, private entries, parking, servicing, daylight, and approval coordination for boutique multi-family projects.
Featured guide: Planning a Fourplex in Calgary: A Practical Design GuideView GuidesGuides for deciding what to keep, what to change, and when an addition or rebuild is the more sensible response to an existing Calgary-area home.
Featured guide: Renovate, Add On, or Rebuild? A Springbank Homeowner's GuideView GuidesLatest Notes
18 Articles
NewA practical guide to planning rooms, storage, circulation, and future options so a family home can keep working through different stages of life.
Privacy in a narrow or attached home comes from dozens of connected choices. Learn how windows, rooms, entrances, sound, and landscaping can work together.
Four homes can share one building and still feel very different. See how daylight, privacy, storage, entrances, and usable layouts shape the appeal of each unit.
Before adding square footage, find out whether poor circulation, storage, light, or room placement is making an otherwise generous Calgary home feel cramped.
A practical look at how Calgary homes can handle winter gear, groceries, children, pets, and the everyday rush through the door without spreading clutter through the plan.
A Calgary pre-construction checklist for the decisions that affect the lot, budget, floor plan, approvals, technical drawings, and start on site.
A floor plan can be visually convincing and still contain daily irritations. This practical critique shows where to look before a beautiful drawing becomes an inconvenient house.
A room-by-room floor-plan review for Calgary homeowners, covering site fit, circulation, furniture, daylight, privacy, storage, climate, and future change.
The community name is only the first filter. A defensible site choice comes from parcel-level evidence about land use, grade, flood conditions, trees, access, servicing, and the house you intend to build.
A Calgary fourplex feasibility guide focused on the parcel, approval path, four livable homes, secondary suites, access, privacy, servicing, and construction coordination.
A candid review of current luxury-home ideas: which ones deserve a place in a Calgary custom home, which require careful specification, and which are mostly expensive scenery.
A decision framework for comparing renovation, addition, and rebuilding on a Springbank property using one brief, one site baseline, and honestly defined scopes.
A practical account of how a Calgary custom home moves from property review and concept design to cost checks, coordinated drawings, approvals, and builder handoff.
A plain-language explanation of how a home designer studies the property, develops the plan and exterior, coordinates information, and prepares residential drawings.
Practical home renovation design in Calgary, from documenting the house and fixing circulation to additions, open-wall upgrades, scope, and sequencing.
A practical way to compare Calgary home designers: examine the evidence in their portfolio, the limits of their proposal, and who remains accountable as the drawings move toward construction.
An infill is defined by where it is built, not how it looks. Learn to read a Calgary redevelopment lot from the street to the lane before committing to a floor plan.
There is no defensible all-in Calgary price without a site and scope. Build a useful budget from six clear cost buckets, then ask builders to price the same information.