Architects initial drawing. Not sure it works?

[flanagaj]

Another thing that made me question the architect is the floor plan option below that we were sent.   Keen to see whether anyone else can spot the error.

[MikeSharp01]

Its a long walk everywhere upstairs and you have to go to bed via the wardrobe, the study bedroom appears to have the desk chair on the bed and there are several places where doors clash.

[Alan Ambrose]

I wonder whether you've just been sent an early/unfinished draft? I wouldn't sweat it, just send the problems back and get them changed. To set the tone, maybe tell them you're surprised and I hope you will get an apology.

[flanagaj]

The stairs don’t even line up, so it’s complete garbage.

[G and J]

26 minutes ago, flanagaj said:

The stairs don’t even line up, so it’s complete garbage.

Au contraire.  You lack the vision and creativity of an architect.  
 

Imagine how impressed your friends will be to ascend half a staircase then clamber over a banister to finish the climb.  No one else will have a feature like it. 😉

[flanagaj]

53 minutes ago, G and J said:

Au contraire.  You lack the vision and creativity of an architect.  
 

Imagine how impressed your friends will be to ascend half a staircase then clamber over a banister to finish the climb.  No one else will have a feature like it. 😉

😂

[PNAmble]

On 31/07/2024 at 18:11, flanagaj said:

The neighbours were the ones selling the land.  

once you’ve bought it, unless the neighbours have a covenant on the land about house design their opinion is just a ‘neighbour’ and is unlikely to have an effect on planning.  
 

Our land had a covenant where next door could effectively refuse any design, funnily though they didn’t have know that they had that right.  We chatted our design through with them and asked them to make a positive planning comment which made their ‘approval’ a matter of public record.  

[PNAmble]

I’d also say you want to access your plant room from inside, do you want to go outside to clean your MVHR filters, reset your internet, reboot the iboost etc etc. 

[torre]

On 31/07/2024 at 17:06, flanagaj said:

She is super cheap, and her fees for drawings and planning submission is only £1800.

The first elevation looks pretty close to your image and you've not given a huge budget to evolve other ideas so you may need to temper expectations a bit or give a bit of feedback and budget to evolve the design - @ETC's sketches are a nice start in terms of ideas to build on the original.

 

Personally I'd prefer the hall to be more central to the main rooms (and of course stairs to line up). It sounds like you're not too impressed so far though - cheap is great but not if it means a battle to direct your architect to deliver what you want.

 

In terms of the application, perhaps show the new and old elevations overlaid so it's clear you're not actually going much if any higher at the ridge, and make another attempt to win over the neighbours, telling them how much the new design means to you and why. In person may work better than email.

[sas7]

Self-building business is slow these days. You can get planning and building regs under £10k if you shop around, even with more famous practices

[flanagaj]

After some consideration, we have decided to part company with the architect who did the initial sketches.   My wife and I need to get this right, and we need an architect who specialises in modernist design, but who can also do some good 3d drawings of how the property will sit on the plot, and how it will look from the lane.   These will hopefully enable the locals, the Parish Council and the planners to visualise that a modernist home will look good and actually enhance the lane.

[Jilly]

I think it’s better to get the same architect to produce both the planning and Building Control construction drawings. There were lots of mistakes because I tried to save money using a different architects as I didn’t understand the pitfalls as a newbie. 

[Dave Jones]

On 02/08/2024 at 21:10, ETC said:

 

like it, bet the planners will spill their vente oatmeel lattes when they see it though.

[Mr Punter]

3 hours ago, flanagaj said:

we need an architect who specialises in modernist design, but who can also do some good 3d drawings of how the property will sit on the plot, and how it will look from the lane. 

 

The people doing the 3d renders just need the CAD drawings from the architect and site survey people, together with some good quality photographs.

 

You don't need an architect to do the renders.

[Alan Ambrose]

Unless you can get 2D views exactly from exactly the same PoV as the photos, a 3D model is better so they don’t have to CAD it up again. Also the architect can act as ‘art director’ but will almost certainly sub out rendering work and add a %. We used google maps views for the background images and supplied example images for the textures for roof & wall coverings etc (depends how realistic you want your montage to be). Fortunately it was a sunny day when google drove past.

[mjc55]

On 03/08/2024 at 21:47, PNAmble said:

I’d also say you want to access your plant room from inside, do you want to go outside to clean your MVHR filters, reset your internet, reboot the iboost etc etc. 

This is something I am thinking about at the moment.  The current idea is to access plant room from the outside, keep it completely separate from rest of house but am not sure how often I would need access.  Would be interested in others experience of this.

[PNAmble]

5 minutes ago, mjc55 said:

This is something I am thinking about at the moment.  The current idea is to access plant room from the outside, keep it completely separate from rest of house but am not sure how often I would need access.  Would be interested in others experience of this

 

I suppose it depends upon what you are building e.g. airtight, passive standards and what you are having in the plant room, we have MVHR, UVC, ASHP Controllers, HW Recirculation, Data Cabinet, Battery, Inverter, Solar Diverter, Core Distribution Boards, Shelly Controllers for automation.  So hence it's part of our Thermal and Airtightness Envelope.    We also dry clothes in ours , as its the warmest room in the house!

If its part of your thermal / airtight envelope, you'll need a good airtight door, if it's not part of the thermal envelope then you'll need to consider the insulation of pipework and MVHR ducts (if using), and also then the sealing of penetrations between the Plant Room and House.     

[JohnMo]

15 minutes ago, mjc55 said:

This is something I am thinking about at the moment.  The current idea is to access plant room from the outside, keep it completely separate from rest of house but am not sure how often I would need access.  Would be interested in others experience of this.

I would keep inside and access from the inside. For all the reasons above.

[Kelvin]

41 minutes ago, mjc55 said:

This is something I am thinking about at the moment.  The current idea is to access plant room from the outside, keep it completely separate from rest of house but am not sure how often I would need access.  Would be interested in others experience of this.

Why?
 

I access the plant room relatively frequently. More so at the moment because I’m still sorting things out. Ease of access also means your more likely to keep an eye on things too. 

 

Think about what else you might put in the plant room. Apart from all the plant equipment I also have house/car keys hanging up, dog leads, outside coats and boots. 
 

 

[G and J]

Sorry to lower the tone but down at our end of town we won’t have a plant room, we will have a rather forward thinking plant encapsulation system (a.k.a. a little cupboard at the end of the garage).  
 

We’ve streamlined our data centre, patch panel and comms distribution system, it’s now called a Wi-Fi router.  We’ve also recalibrated our multi functional audio-visual experience system and using the latest 2018 technologies we’ve managed to cover all the current state of the art functions with a smart tv and sound bar.  Oh and we’ll have one of those new fangled DAB radios too.   We’ve pushed the home automation system boat out massively in that we will have a couple of hive bulbs so some lights come on when we are away in our campervan.   Through dedicated use of exactly what we do already we won’t have any cat anything cables or PoE either so we will save a few bob too.  

We will however, most importantly, have a whizzy coffee maker.  But not in the plant suite.

[joe90]

+1 for a cupboard (mine was off the cloakroom) and as a Luddite less is more IMO (and less to go wrong in the future)

this is my idea of tech

 

[G and J]

6 minutes ago, joe90 said:

+1 for a cupboard (mine was off the cloakroom) and as a Luddite less is more IMO (and less to go wrong in the future)

this is my idea of tech

 

Sorry, does not pass muster.  Way too much maintenance polishing that bell.  
 

I presume that’s one of these modern ‘Ring’ doorbells everyone is talking about.   😉