Your home starts with your ideas.
Design your shed home in 3D. Explore layouts and finishes, and see it on your block.
2,000+people signed up to design their home
Free to explore • $29/month to edit • In your browser
- Design
- Shouse Starter Pack
- Prelim Package
- Engineering
- Order Kit
Draw your plan. Watch your home take shape.
Explore your layout, then see it in 3D.
A capture of the actual studio — the Pod, with its bays, skylights and live floor areas.
The Pod, served on demand from the Shouse Designer’s own 3D engine — nothing loads until you ask. Orbit it, and try real COLORBOND® colours inside the live model.
See how your home fits your block.
Explore placement, orientation and available site information.
The Pod drawn inside the parcel boundary, with the bearings of each side and level points marked. Example site from the Shouse Designer.
The sun path over the block — sunrise and midday marked on the same capture. Example site from the Shouse Designer.
A sample site-plan sheet — locality, levels and mapped hazards, marked preliminary. Example site from the Shouse Designer.
Where does the site information come from?Mapped information is indicative and does not replace a survey.
- 01
Public mapping
Type the address and the Designer finds the parcel from the state’s cadastre, draws your home inside its boundary, and notes flood and bushfire-prone area mapping where the state publishes it. Free and instant, so you can place your home and price it straight away.
- 02
Your own levels
Type them in and they are used in preference to the mapping.
- 03
A registered surveyor
Four corner levels, your floor level, the benchmark and their registration — the drawing set includes the request sheet they work from, and the final set is reissued on their figures.
Every sheet in a drawing set says which source its levels came from. When a survey comes in, the real levels go in and the set is reissued with a revision history showing both.
Turn your design into preliminary drawings.
Communicate your proposal with clear plans of your home and its position on your block.
- Dimensioned floor plans
- External elevations
- Site and shadow plans
- Roof plan
- Your Shouse Starter Pack, included
Stage One · Preliminary Package
- Catalogue PackageA published catalogue design
- Custom PackageYour own design
For preliminary planning discussions. Engineering comes with your kit; approvals follow separately. Buy the Catalogue Package on any published design’s page, or order either package from inside the Shouse Designer.
See everything includedThe issued A3 set, sheet by sheet — how many depends on your block and your storeys.
Cover sheet
Your own render on the front, with the job and the revision.
Site plan, true scale
Your home drawn on your actual parcel, setbacks marked. Large lots get a location plan as well.
Shadow plan
Cast at 9 am, noon and 3 pm on 21 June — the winter solstice, the day an overshadowing study uses.
Floor plans
Dimensioned, with every room, opening and fixture where you put it.
Elevations
Each face of the home, with the window and door schedule on the sheet.
Roof plan
Falls, gutters and downpipes — drawn from the same model as every other sheet.
Levels, flood and bushfire noted
The early site answers a council asks about, on the set from day one.
MBA’s site-fit review
A person at MBA reads your home against your block before the set is issued.
Wind verification
Your wind region checked and recorded on the set. A check, not the engineering — that comes with your Engineered MBA Kit.
Revision control
Every reissue is tracked, so the set in your hand is always the one that matches your model.
Your Shouse Starter Pack
MBA’s reviewed kit estimate for the design you submit, with its basis stated — included in both packages.
Made for council pre-lodgement and planning conversations — and for your builder and your bank. The engineering for building approval follows as part of your Engineered MBA Kit, drawn from the same model. Your final set is reissued on a registered surveyor’s levels.
The Catalogue Package covers a published design as drawn, with its existing windows and doors resized, your colours and your placement on the block. Moving, adding or removing windows or doors, or changing the layout, makes it a custom design — MBA confirms which applies before you pay.
Explore free. Take the next step when you’re ready.
Understand each stage before you commit.
- 01
Design
$29/month
inc GST
Explore free. Subscribe to edit.
OptionalShouse Starter Pack
Optional
Optional — check the costs first. Also inside every Prelim Package.
- 02
Prelim Package
Your documents
Your drawings and your Shouse Starter Pack.
03Engineering
Included
in your kit price
Site-specific professional work, coordinated by MBA.
04Order Kit
Project quote
Proceed with your kit supply.
Exploring is free; editing is a subscription you can cancel anytime. Every other service is priced when you order it.
Also from MBA
Sketch to Shouse
Send us your sketch or concept — MBA models it as a Shouse design in your account.
How it worksSite Plan
Your home drawn on your actual block, as a plan of its own.
Rendered Image
A finished image of your design, prepared by MBA.
Sketch to Shouse starts on its own page; the others are ordered or booked inside the Shouse Designer. The Design & Quote Call stays free.
How engineering, quotation and kit ordering connect
In your kit
Site-specific engineering
Site-specific engineering by qualified professionals, coordinated by MBA — included in your kit price.
Issued
Formal quote
MBA issues your formal kit quote, priced from your engineered design.
Kit
Engineered MBA Kit
MBA supplies it — every member counted from the model, flat-packed to your site. Your builder or owner-builder builds it.
The formal quote is issued after engineering — never before. The whole path, stage by stage, is on how it works; the governing terms are on terms and conditions.
Bring your clients’ ideas into focus.
A shared design workspace for presenting ideas and developing your own range.
Present your designs
White-label outputs and your own published range — the engine is ours, the name on the sheet is yours.
Work with clients
Share a design link — a customer, a builder or a bank can view and spin the model on any device.
Continue your workflow
Architect Mode, first-pass structural checks as you draw, and DXF export of the plan and the 3D shell for your own tools.
Professional features depend on your account. Partner accounts are set up by MBA.
The Designer Licence is priced per firm, set in your licence agreement.
The design library.
Published from the studio — a firm’s own range works the same way.
A few things before you start.
Clear answers, so you can design with confidence.
Is the Designer free?
Free to explore: open any design, see it in 3D, place it on your block, try colours, and save it. Changing a design — walls, bays, windows and doors, fixtures, cladding and finishes, rooms and structure — is $29/month inc GST. Cancel anytime. The Shouse Starter Pack, the Preliminary Packages and MBA’s other services are ordered separately, when you’re ready. Site-specific engineering is included in your Engineered MBA Kit.
Do I need CAD experience?
No. If you can sketch on a napkin, you can design a shouse. Everything snaps to the structural grid, so what you draw is what we can build.
What does the indicative kit price include?
Engineered shell kit — frame, roofing, cladding, flashings and fasteners. Delivery, slab, window and door units, services, labour and internal fit-out are additional. The Designer shows a live indicative kit price as you draw, counted from your own model. Your Shouse Starter Pack turns it into reviewed facts with the basis stated. The formal quote is issued after engineering.
When do I need preliminary drawings?
When you want to take your proposal to a council pre-lodgement or planning discussion, a builder or your bank. The Preliminary Package (Stage One) is the issued A3 set of your exact home on your exact block, with your Shouse Starter Pack included: the Catalogue Package for a published catalogue design — its allowance covers resizing the existing windows and doors, colours and placement on your block — and the Custom Package for your own design or bigger changes. The engineering for building approval follows separately, as part of your Engineered MBA Kit.
I have a sketch, not a design. Can MBA model it?
Yes — that is Sketch to Shouse. Send your sketch or concept; MBA first checks it can be modelled within the MBA building system, and if it can’t you get a full refund. If it can, MBA models it as a Shouse design in your Shouse Designer account, with two consolidated revision rounds. It models your idea — it is not a redesign.
Is my design engineered?
It’s checked as you draw — the grid keeps you inside buildable limits — then, as part of your Engineered MBA Kit, the structure is engineered for your site and wind region by qualified professionals, coordinated by MBA. You concept it; they make it stand up.
Can I use my own builder or designer?
Absolutely. Share your design link and they can work in the tool with you, or take the DXF into their own software. Your design is yours; MBA’s terms do not make it exclusive to us. MBA supplies the kit — your builder or owner-builder builds it, under the terms.
Who does what
- You
- Own the project — the land, the approvals, the builder or the owner-builder permit.
- Qualified professionals
- Produce the site-specific engineering and the energy pathway.
- MBA
- Coordinates the technical pathway, records the engineering release, quotes and supplies the kit.
- Council · certifier
- Make every approval decision.
What would your shed home look like? Explore free.
Start with a design you like — free to explore. Make it yours when you're ready; cancel anytime and your designs stay.
Aussie-made · BlueScope steel · Nationwide delivery