Process Factsheet

Process Factsheet – Architecture FAQ’s

The myth that makes reading this in full important:

There are widely held misconceptions about the role of the architect/consultant in the design and construction process.

Many people think that all we do is “draw plans”, this is a myth.

We are your agent, acting for you to ensure that the project goes according to plan and produces a space which improves your lifestyle or working environment.

Sure, a big part of our role is producing a design that you like, and which meets your needs, but actually we provide structure, support and guidance about all sorts of things. We ensure that things run in an orderly way as far as is possible. This saves time and money, and here is why this is needed.

The reality:

The reality is that we are the lead designers on your project. We are responsible for ensuring that your project complies with a wide range of legislation, and some subjective policy to list a few of the considerations:

1. Planning policy – Getting the project approved (hopefully!), and then ensuring it is built in accordance with the design.
2. Listed building consent – Designing a compliant scheme and negotiation of this with a local conservation officer and/or Historic England.
3. Environmental protection – protected species, damage to trees.
4. Building Regulations – The technical aspects that any building project must comply with. Considerations include ventilation, fire risk, structural integrity, electrical safety.
5. Health and safety - The Construction Design and Management Regulations (CDM 2015).

You should be aware that non-compliance with any of the above list, and some of the others we haven’t listed, is in fact a criminal offence.

We consultants act as your agent to deliver compliance with all of these areas, and many more. Where additional professionals are required to provide input and specialist expertise to overcome any of these issues, we ensure that they are appointed by you.

We then manage them to produce information which is not only compliant, but optimised to your needs. This gives you the best chance of achieving your goals and ambitions for your new or improved property.

OK, I think I understand. Can you tell me more about these steps and what I need to do to avoid these issues?

Approaching a qualified architect, architectural technologist, or surveyor to help you with a detailed assessment of your needs and options is a great start. In order to get the best results, it is really important to select an organisation who charge for this important visit. A "free consultation" could potentially result in a sales pitch to sign you up for a design service rather than offer an objective view. Ask yourself these two questions:

1. Apart from signing me up into a design service, how else will that practice recover the cost of the visit?
2. Is it likely that they could pass abortive costs on to me from their last prospect client that did not proceed?

Of course, paying for a feasibility and viability appraisal could increase upfront costs, but it drastically reduces the risk of encountering problems later on. It also avoids signing up to a full proposal without an objective and independent view, which really does start to hurt very quickly.

This appraisal will identify the main barriers to achieving a successful project, and will shed some light on the opportunity and potential benefits of the project. It will also show the process you need to follow, but in order to get a general idea of how things work.

Let’s go through the previous points in turn:

1)    Planning permission: Planning policy in the UK is far more subjective and confusing than clients often think. The process involves consulting with Planning Officers, making an application which should be compliant, and then hopefully waiting for approval.

Sometimes it doesn’t go smoothly and changes are requested by the planning officer to overcome a “material consideration” they have identified with the scheme.

These are sometimes very subjective and include items such as:

A)    Loss of “amenity”, either to the property forming the proposal or to neighbouring properties. This may include shading by a new building or extension, overlooking (or being overlooked) or the appearance of the building being oppressive. In the case of loss of amenity to the proposed building, this may include overdevelopment of the plot or taking up too much of the garden etc.

B)    The views of other bodies such as Highways, The Environment Agency, Historic Associations and Societies.

C)    The setting around a listed building (which could be several tens or even hundreds of metres from your site.

D)    Considerations such as flood risks, environmental damage, tree protection. (Important: This is not just about protected trees, but all trees which may be adversely affected by the construction).

Material considerations are all weighted on a benefit vs. harm basis. The benefit is not in fact the benefit to the applicant, but the wider benefit to society resulting from the proposal. Benefits can include provision of housing, design which is attractive and complements or improves the area, improvement to highway safety etc.

If the benefits are outweighed by the harm in the view of the planning officer, then the project may risk either being decided by the planning committee or being refused altogether. This decision does not imply fault or poor judgement on your architect or designer.

This is often simply a consequence of the subjective nature of what the material considerations are, and how much weight should be given to them. This may be reinforced or further skewed by objections from statutory consultees, or the public if they raise an objection containing a valid material consideration.

But all is not lost! If there are concerns, your planning officer is obliged to work with you to overcome them. Changes may be requested which make the benefit vs. harm equation of the proposal more balanced so it brings the scheme back into acceptability for approval, or a recommendation from the officer for the planning committee to approve.

It should be noted that your architect/designer will charge you for making these changes, but the result may well be getting what you wanted with some changes to reduce your impact on the neighbours. Typically, this could involve moving an extension further from the shared boundary, or changing the shape of a roof to allow more light into their garden.

What if I don’t want to make the suggested changes?

No problem! You still have options, you can either:

1. Request an extension of time to reach a decision with your designer on what you want to do,
2. Withdraw the application to avoid a refusal on the site and change tack completely,
3. Ask for the application to be heard and decided by a planning committee,
4. Allow the application to be refused and take the application to appeal.

Hopefully it will all go smoothly though, typically around 50-60% of schemes go straight through without any hiccups at all, and around 20-30% are easily overcome without radical changes being needed to overcome officer concerns.

I have planning permission, so can I start the build?

No, there are likely to be a number of conditions attached to the planning consent which will need to be discharged by taking the required action. These often prevent or prohibit development or habitation of the proposal until this required action is taken.

You will then need to move on to technical design, which produces plans which are suitable to pass Building Regulations, and further construction drawings which supply more detailed information for pricing and building purposes.

What if my building is listed?

2)    Listed building consent is very similar in terms of a benefit vs. harm equation. Its’ focus is however on the building itself, the place it occupies, “the curtilage”, and any trees or plants around it with a stem bigger than 75mm (3”) in diameter.

Listed building consent is also subjective. For more information, request our free guide: “9 helpful tips for getting the most from your listed building project”

I have a lot of wildlife on my property, and I’d really like my project to be environmentally friendly. What do I have to do in this respect?

3)    Environmental protection is engrained in the process, from protecting wildlife from direct harm, and also by specifying materials and components which do no harm to the wider environment. This is very important to get right, both for protected species in terms of criminal liability, and clearly the future of our planet.

Sustainability and architecture are entwined due to achieving regulatory compliance under the Building Regulations. However, this can be taken much further to design the project to a much higher level (e.g. a passive house, where insulation is greater and heat losses are much lower.

These properties typically save 90% of the heat energy used by a standard home).

If they are not the highest standard, is complying with the Building Regulations important?

4)    Building Regulations are a suite of legislation which sets out in detail the minimum standard to which the project MUST comply. These are described in the “Approved Documents” which are a guide of how to achieve compliance with each section of the regulations.

Certain exemptions may be gained in the case of refurbishment projects, particularly in the case of listed properties, but sometimes in other circumstances too, although these are limited to very clear and concise cases. As we said, this is a minimum standard and often our role will be to ensure that this standard is met or exceeded.

Typically, to ensure quality we set targets for our design to exceed these requirements, particularly in the case of the thermal performance and ventilation of the property, as these have a huge bearing on your comfort. Compliance with other sections directly affect your safety, and should not be neglected or underestimated.

The process of obtaining Buildings Regulations is twofold:

1. Detailed drawings are prepared and submitted to the building inspector for checking. If these demonstrate compliance with the regulations, we will receive a plans check certificate. If not, we will receive a list of items which need addressing, and will modify these to gain compliance.
2. The project will be inspected on site by the building inspector at regular intervals, who will look at a few key stages of the project and sign the project off once complete. We typically need to supply the appointed building control body with additional information and paperwork such as commissioning certificates supplied by your electrician, and heating engineer.

Why are inspections important, and why do we need to make improvements if requested by the building inspector?

Although sometimes frustrating, changes for your builder to make as requested by the building inspector are vital for your safety and the performance of the structure. Failure to observe the Building Regulations can result in enforcement action, and ultimately prosecution if the breach is not remedied.

So, the appointed building control body will ensure that my project is built correctly?

Not exactly, no! It is important to realise that this process can only address items covered in the agreed inspection schedule and is not a complete guarantee that the project has been constructed properly. It simply confirms that the design is adequate, and that at the time of inspection no breaches were found.

It does not comment on quality or workmanship, just compliance. In order to address those concerns, a building warranty or a Professional Consultant’s Certificate (PCC), which requires a schedule of visits by a warranty provider or architect/designer respectively, is a much more robust guarantee of quality, and is, in fact, the only option to give peace of mind.

There are many other good reasons why your designer should continue as your agent as you search for a builder, and build out your design, but we will explore these later.

5)    CDM Regulations: In the commercial world, the Construction Design and Management Regulations have been around since 1994 in various forms. They place various duties on everyone involved in a building project to ensure the health and safety of all others involved in it.

Duties are placed upon the client, and in the 2015 regulations, these duties were placed on residential clients (homeowners) for the first time. There are several duties based on the client in the case of all construction work and more if the project exceeds the threshold where it is reportable to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).

For more details, please refer to our CDM Awareness letter appended to our proposal. Key duties include appointing a Principal Contractor and Principal Designer in writing, and then providing them with adequate time and resources to discharge their details effectively.

So the design is now finished, and everything that could go wrong has now been sorted, right?

Wrong on both counts! You still need to check you are on budget, deal with that if not, find a builder, put him under a suitable contract, and then make sure the design is properly executed on site.

OK that makes sense! Who will help me with this?

We strongly recommend that you consider allowing your designer to continue in their role to do this. They’ll provide the following assistance and advice:

1. Prepare a package for pricing purposes and send this to an independent cost consultant to check that the budget is still on target, and as a tool to check quotes against.
2. Send the pricing package to building contractors, suitable to undertake your project type. Quotes received can then be checked against the cost estimate, and potential savings identified, or inaccuracies corrected. This is a great process even if you don’t want to go to several builders and have chosen one already, as it allows your designer to negotiate to get a fair price.
3. The contract can be placed with the builder, which sets out your terms with them. It is very important to set out these terms and ensure they comply with it. The designer will agree a programme for the works which reflects the time needed for the build.
4. Manage change! One of the most common causes of dispute and/or cost overruns are changes requested on site. Where at all possible, these should be avoided, but if you do make requests for change, the costs for making them should be fair and reasonable. Your designer will ensure that this is properly quantified and agreed in advance if possible.
5. Manage timescales and payments on your behalf, your designer will check progress against the agreed programme, and that invoices submitted by the builder actually accord with this. They will intervene and manage this on your behalf without the need for upset or confrontation.
6. Look at quality and ensure cheaper substitute products are only used if appropriate.
7. They may arrange for structural warranty visits or provide a Professional Consultant’s Certificate (PCC) to confirm that the works have been undertaken satisfactorily.
8. Ensure defects and “snags” are properly addressed and that the property is handed to you in as close as possible to perfect working order.
9. Visit site again 6 or 12 months later to ensure any defects that have appeared during occupation are resolved by the builder.