Budget Breakdown FAQ

How do you choose homes to include in the Budget Breakdown column?

We select projects where budget decisions led to a noteworthy design—stories about everything from particularly inexpensive builds to major investments in architectural R&D.

Where does budget information come from?

We have a basic template we supply to story subjects with typical budget categories in it, and we ask them to provide the costs for major components of their project—they’re welcome to add their own additional categories as well. Our calculations come from the estimates they supply.

Is there a standardized price index used in all of these stories?

No. We do not attempt to standardize costs across stories. We cover projects all over the world, and regional variations would make exact comparisons impossible. Plus, the costs that one person chooses to include in a category, such as "permitting" or "appliances," varies widely among projects.

Similarly, how different people choose to define the scope and timeline of a project varies immensely. For example, one story subject might choose to include the cost of installing new water and sewer services on their land as a part of their home build, but another may consider it a separate project focused on site work. We leave this up to the story subject.

Why don’t we standardize this data?

Dwell’s aim is not to create a comprehensive index of construction costs around the world. Instead, we use budget information as a way to tell a story about how someone was able to pull off a project, where they chose to save and splurge, and how creative constraints and smart design decisions helped them to realize their visions.

For more about how we think about budget information, read the Edit Letter from our March/April 2024 issue.

For more about how we approach stories, read Dwell’s editorial standards.