I’m afraid we can’t offer unlimited options or amendments. As you could imagine, this could easily get out of hand and result in an amendment every single time a client thinks about the design. Instead we work with you and use design stages to help clients consolidate their thoughts and any amendments, allowing us to keep our fees as competitive as possible for you.
The design process…
During the Initial Design Stage, we explore different ideas based on your brief and then present a couple of options to you and explain our reasoning and design thinking. This allows you to make an informed decision and test any preconceived ideas. We then leave those options with you to mull over, decide what is important to you and which is the best fit.
Clients often come back with a round of amendments at that point, for example, “we like this about this option, but this about the other option” or “can we make X a bit bigger or smaller?” We incorporate those into the next stage - Planning Application. We then refine the design, complete digital CAD drawings and issue these for your approval. We are also happy to make a second round of minor tweaks to these drawings prior to submitting the planning application.
So, there’s a couple of opportunities to amend the design prior to submitting the proposed scheme for planning approval.
What happens next?…
A planning application then essentially sets the design but we can usually make some minor internal amendments as we work up the technical design if required. The technical design will include construction information for your builder and building regulation information for your Building Control Application.
A couple of notes…
It’s tricky to find the right balance of keeping fees as competitive as possible for clients but also allowing enough time to provide a well considered design (and allow time for meetings, phone calls, emails, etc). We always seek to be fair on fees and ask our clients to do the same. For a bit more information on architects fees, please see ‘Why use an Architect’, ‘Not just a piece of paper’ or ‘Our fees’. For a rough estimate over the phone or an initial meeting with a fixed fee, please feel free to get in touch.
If you do need us to do a major design change for any reason, we would always discuss and agree any extra work/fees prior to doing the work.