An architect will translate your ideas into tangible plans, handle planning permissions and technical building regulations, while ensuring that your building project is safe, functional and well-designed.

While the upfront cost of appointing an architect may seem onerous, they can be fundamental in helping prevent budget overruns by creating accurate and detailed plans, and coordinating their design with other consultants, often providing higher returns on your investment and getting more out of your home than you ever thought possible.

“Our job is to give the customer not what he wants but what he never dreamed of.”

- Denys Lasdun, Architect of the National Theatre in London

Our design fees vary depending on the scope and complexity of your project, whether it’s a new-build house, home extension or internal reconfiguration.

Following an initial in-person design consultation, which we offer to all potential local clients free of charge, we will provide you with a comprehensive tailored fee proposal to reflect your design brief.

Once we have been appointed, you will be invoiced at each stage of the design process once you have received the relevant stage design output.

We all want to get value for money and we understand that there is a significant up front cost associated with appointing an architect for your project.

But, in our experience, cheaper can often mean a reduced or lesser quality service so it’s important to be sure that the other architect is offering a like for like service. We’re always very happy to review competing quotes to see if we might be able to adjust our scope of services to match theirs.

We pride ourselves in the high quality, personal design service we offer our clients and we really hope that you will put your dream project in our safe and very capable hands.

We often hear this from potential clients and we can absolutely help you to better understand what is possible with your existing home so that you can determine if it is worth investing your time and money in it - whether it is a 5 year, 10 year or forever plan.

Balancing the risk and reward between taking on a potentially costly and disruptive construction project versus the upheaval and high transactional cost of relocating is an important decision for you and your family. You can only make an informed decision once you know what is possible design-wise as well as what it is likely to cost.

You will only get meaningful cost projections from builders once you have design information to show them. Investing a relatively small amount of money up front to explore the design potential of your home could save you time and money in the long run.

Many common home improvement projects, including those listed below, can fall within home owner Permitted Development Rights which means planning permission may not required.

• Garage conversions

• Loft conversions

• Garden rooms

• Single storey side and/or rear extensions

• Porch additions

• New doors, windows or roof windows

The nuances of these rules are not always clear and we would always recommend that proposed drawings be submitted to the Local Authority for a Lawful Development application just to be certain, prior to commencing construction.

More information can be found at the links below…

https://www.planningportal.co.uk/permission/common-projects

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/permitted-development-rights-for-householders-technical-guidance

In most circumstances the planning application process takes 8 weeks, from date of submission to receipt of a determination from your Local Authority. Delays can occur to this process when the Local Authority are experiencing high demand or when design changes are required due to neighbour objections or other reasons.

From appointing us, it could be 2 to 3 months before we are ready to submit a planning application on your behalf, depending on the complexity of your project. We will talk you through this process in more detail at the initial design consultation.

We often hear confusion in this regard from clients - planning and building control are completely separate functions and require separate applications at different stages of the project.

Planning permission gives you the right to undertake your project. It covers the design principles of the project, assessing whether it complies with local and national policies and whether it would cause unacceptable harm to neighbour amenity, character of the street, car parking etc.

Building control covers the more technical and structural aspects of the design, assessing its compliance with building regulations as well monitoring the progress of a project through the construction process in relation to all relevant construction standards.

Most building work requires building regulations approval - house extensions and loft conversions, converting garages into habitable rooms, carrying out specific structural alterations and carrying out drainage works.

Some minor construction projects are exempt in very specific circumstances - for example, constructing a new garden outbuilding can be exempt, as long as it does not contain sleeping accommodation, is below a certain size threshold, located away from the boundary and/or constructed in non-combustible materials.

We always recommend clients to make a Full Plans application to building control which means allowing time for the Local Authority or Approved Inspector to carry out their pre-construction design checking procedures to ensure that everything is compliant - this can save time and money, avoiding unnecessary delays on site by ironing out any discrepancies before building work starts.

• Planning and Building control application costs often come as a shock to home owners as these are not usually included in Architect’s design fees. Planning fees will vary depending on the type of application required and building control costs generally relate to the size of extension or type of works proposed and vary by Local Authority or private inspector.

• Most construction projects will require input from a structural engineer and their design fees should therefore also be taken into account - Reavell Architects has a good working relationship with a number of local engineers and can make recommendations based on the project type, size and location.

• An arboriculturlist may be required to prepare a tree report for planning applications where the proposed works may impact existing trees on or around the site.

• Party Wall awards will often need to be agreed with neighbours prior to construction where the proposed works are on or near the boundary. This does not always carry a cost, but sometimes it may makes sense to appoint a surveyor to ensure that the process runs smoothly, particularly where neighbours might object to the work you intend to undertake.