Architect Design v Self Design

[Kernow]

Hi,

What has everyone done with regards to the design and drawings for your self build projects? How many of you have done all your own design & drawings how many of you have employed an architect?

 

What was your reason for making this decision?

I’d be interested to hear your experiences?

 

Thanks

Mike 

[joe90]

 

Hi Mike, I designed our house but I have been a small time “builder” for a few years but mostly  kitchen and bathrooms and a few loft conversions so understood the fundamentals. I got an “architect” just to put my pencil drawings on CAD and make the planning application as I don’t do CAD and I was told “round ere they don’t like emmets” (people from outside the area). Even though my drawings were very clear the architect made quite a few mistakes but eventually got it right.

 

I am not a fan of architects as I have found a lot (not all) design what they want, not you the customer and ignore your budget.

 

Architects can be good if you are not sure what you want and need suggestions but if you know what you want then an architectural technician is capable (and mostly cheaper) to put it on paper/CAD.

 

if you posted your design/thoughts here you will get lots of comments/suggestions from people with experience.

Edited May 13, 2019 by joe90
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[Moonshine]

I did my own drawings at pre-app stage, as i had a good idea of what would fit on the site and what may be allowable by the council.

 

I have appointed an Architectural Technologist to do the planning application, as its a fairly complicated site with history, but a fairly straight forward design (i wasn't looking for to much of a 'statement design').

 

Planning application is to go in soon, and so far glad that i went down this route, with hopefully a granting of planning permission.

 

If it was a more simple site, i might have done the application myself, but as for building regs drawings i would have got some else to do those. 

[ProDave]

I did my drawings for planning, then got an architectural technician to detail it together with a structural engineer, and to produce the building regs and construction drawings.

[Gone West]

We designed our own house and submitted the planning application ourselves. After we got approval we employed an architect to draw up the building control drawings and liaise with the timber frame company and structural engineer.

[jack]

We engaged an architect from the start (two, actually - we didn't like what the first one designed so we replaced them fairly early on).

 

For us, the second architect was an almost wholly positive experience. I was really impressed by the unexpected but excellent layout he came up with on his first go. It was completely different to what the first architect came up with, and to anything else we'd come up with over all the months we'd been sketching things out.

 

I ended up being largely responsible for the outside design, but I don't think I'd have come up with anything like what he proposed for the layout.

 

Another thing our architect was excellent at was the planning process. He's a local guy who almost exclusively designs very modern houses to be built in a conservative area where planning is pretty anti-modern. We got through planning first time with his help, and I don't doubt for a moment that his local knowledge got us there. 

 

I know there's a can-do spirit on this forum, and perhaps people genuinely have done as good a job as most architects would have managed in the circumstances. For me, I just wasn't willing to save a few thousand quid to risk a huge amount of money building something I'd come up with myself. Perhaps I should/could have been more self-confident, but ultimately each individual needs to make that choice.

[Ed Davies]

Like @Moonshine, I did my own drawings for the pre-app then got an architectural technician to do the main planning and building warrant drawings. I did a 3D sketch for illustration in the Design Statement part of the full planning application and a few drawings at the end of the building warrant process (cross section of the roof which the BCO hadn't understood fully from the original submission plus sketches for the rainwater harvesting system which hadn't been detailed) when I'd dropped the architectural technician out of the loop.

 

Knowing what I know now I could probably do most of it myself but at the time I started, no chance.

[Jeremy Harris]

I initially contacted a handful of architects locally, but wasn't very impressed with any of them, so opted to do the design and drawings myself.  The drawing bit wasn't hard, as I've been using AutoCad for years, but the design took loads of iterations to get right, and even now I think a good architect could have improved on it. 

 

Having said that, we did save a lot of money by taking the DIY route, although we only had the time available to do this as a result of a 12 month delay in our plot purchase (that's how long it took to sort out a boundary error).  That time enabled me to get up to speed on the building regs and go through maybe a dozen or more different designs.

[SteamyTea]

11 hours ago, JSHarris said:

That time enabled me to get up to speed on the building regs and go through maybe a dozen or more different designs.

You also made plenty of models too.

Models are good.

[Kernow]

Thanks for all the responses great to hear how different people approach it. 

 

We we pretty much know what we want, but would like it done quickly and don’t want to make any glaring mistakes with the design layout. 

 

I have attempted to attach attach a layout we have been playing around, pretty chide this about downstairs but not sure about the upstairs. Any thoughts would be appreciated. 

[the_r_sole]

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Edited September 26, 2019 by the_r_sole

[ultramods]

3 hours ago, Kernow said:

Thanks for all the responses great to hear how different people approach it. 

 

We we pretty much know what we want, but would like it done quickly and don’t want to make any glaring mistakes with the design layout. 

 

I have attempted to attach attach a layout we have been playing around, pretty chide this about downstairs but not sure about the upstairs. Any thoughts would be appreciated. 

 

To get good feedback on your plans it would be helpful to know:

• Room Dimensions, not just area
• Add in Windows + doors
• House Orientation ( where is N, E, S, W)
• Photos of the plot, including each orientation.
• Also if bedroom are to have fitted wardrobes, I would add them now as they can cause knock on effects if you add them later.
• Include all sink and toilet positions
• include all worktop positions in kitchen and utility
• In the bathrooms do you want toilet cisterns building into the wall, as again the bulkhead for this should be thought about now.

 

[Kernow]

Yes Apologies, I know that’s not a lot to go on I just quickly put up what we had been playing around with so far. I will get a bit more detail together then create a separate thread. 

 

Our preference was initially to have an architect design it as I can very much see the value that they bring, and design is outside of my comfort zone/whereas I’m more than confident on the building front. 

[TT-Smyth]

Like some of the others here we made up some designs first, then contacted an architect who luckily enough for us was really nice and improved on our initial plans also though in keeping with what we had envisioned. Overall we had a positive experience with our man, however I have heard that some architects aren't as flexible or cooperative with the design.