---
name: design-rationale
description: Write the planning design statement from your sketch notes, in the assessor's language. Use when a scheme is resolved enough to explain and you need the written justification.
---

# Design Rationale

## What it does
Turns rough design notes and sketches into a structured design statement that answers the assessment criteria in the language a planner uses.

## When to use
- Preparing a development application or planning submission.
- Any time a scheme needs a written justification against controls.

## Instructions
1. Ask for the applicable controls or assessment criteria (or the jurisdiction, so they can be requested).
2. Structure the statement to each criterion: context and character, scale and form, amenity, materials, landscape, sustainability, access.
3. Argue from the scheme's actual moves, not generic virtue. Reference the specific control being answered.
4. Keep claims defensible. Do not assert compliance the user has not verified.

## Output format
A criterion-by-criterion design statement, each section naming the control it answers and the design response.

## The one mistake to avoid
Writing warm generic prose that never engages the actual control. The assessor scores against criteria, so answer them by name.