Member Article

Grand Design - can I do it?

We all have watched countless episodes of Grand Designs and similar TV shows, us architects do as well. We probably look at it slightly differently, but these episodes are great fun nonetheless.

There is a pattern emerging. The clients have an ambitious project, a reasonably good budget, or so it seems at the start at least, they may even have had an architect help them draw up their ideas on paper. They found the perfect plot, fell in love with it, here in the UK or somewhere sunny in a foreign country.The start is promising, and if it wasn’t for Kevin McLeaod’s trademark style of we would expect the episode to go on without much drama, and finish timely with another realised dream home.So why do these problems happen on site all the time?

I may be generalising here a bit of course. As a matter of fact, problems or more often queries on site are the norm, there is always something happening which requires a quick decision. You may be the one getting that early morning phone call from your builder, that he needs an answer or he cannot continue as planned. If he stops for longer, he may need to move his men to another site, as otherwise you are paying for them to sit around.

Even a relatively small project like an extension or loft conversion requires several decisions at key times, which mostly need to be taken in the correct order to avoid financial or even legal trouble. The work itself requires a thought process and planning of the house as a whole “organism”. It is prudent if not completely necessary to think on how you would like to use your new part of the house - where you intend to place your desk or bed, what kind of sanitaryware you like and also their size and location. While a lot of these are really nothing out of the ordinary, they may not be that obvious to you, but they certainly are to us architects.

Please do not mistake the above for anything else than good advice. I am simply giving you a real life example of what it means to manage a project on site. Again, if reading the above you felt you would be able to respond to the builder with confidence, you should consider yourself a good manager. But, and this is the long story short - even if you feel that you have got the time, knowledge and patience to oversee your and your family’s “Grand Design”, believe me when I tell you that inviting a good architect to help you with it will benefit this in so many ways that if I asked you after the process if you would, you most likely would agree.

Advice

Retain your architect for the whole duration of the process. Let him manage the building contract and also advise your builder on everyday queries or when additional drawings are needed. He will remain the single point of contact for you for any queries, changes or issues you may have. His experience will be invaluable to make sure your house is the result of countless ideas, brought together perfectly to suit your current and future needs.

Us here at Vorbild Architecture offer fixed monthly payments which include any and all necessary site visits and drawings which you or the builder needs. Contact us for more advice on info@vorbild.co.uk

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Michael Jacob Schienke .