4-5. Technical and Specialist Design

A successful project is as reliant on the detail design as on the overall strategy. We need time both to develop the construction details in a way which supports the overall design idea and to research the most appropriate materials and fittings. You need to be ready either to make decisions about these based on our suggestions or to put in quite a lot of legwork if you want to research finishes and fittings yourself.

If you want to be confident that the design will be built as intended, it is worth commissioning from us a full set of production information, which includes construction details and a specification. But, if your budget is tight, and the overall strategy matters to you more than its execution, there may be builders who are prepared to build using the design drawings and a brief schedule of works.

If you decide to choose a builder through competitive tender, we issue the production information to a small number of builders, normally three; based on their tenders we help you choose the most appropriate one; the cheapest builder is not always the right one - a suspiciously low price tends to suggest that the builder hasn’t properly understood the scope of the work and may try to claim back costs during the course of the job.