DESIGN PROCESS

We aim to contact you within 24 hours of receiving your enquiry to learn about your project needs and make a booking for your first appointment at appropriate time for you.

The initial site consultation allows us to see your property, discuss ideas in the comfort of your own space, the feasibility of the space and understand what you want to achieve. Every project is different and it is important we fully understand what you want to obtain from your property enlargement from the very beginning. The site visits also offer us an opportunity to tell you more about how we work. We only send out members of our Architectural Team so you’ll get a knowledgeable, creative team member, passionate about architecture and design. Following your initial site consultation, we will send over your quote based on the discussion and information obtained from the site visit. This outlines both our Fixed Fee Design Service and also a budget estimate from our Construction Team.

If you decide to proceed, the first thing we do is to book in your measured survey. This is a meeting at your property which is typically 2-4 hours (this does vary on project size). You will meet your Designers and sit down with them to discuss what you want to achieve from your new extension area. This will be your designers throughout the entire Design Process and they’ll develop your design with you, take you through layout options, planning and prepare your Building Reg Pack. They’ll have lots of ideas, floor plans and images for you to consider, so if you are not sure what you want that is not a problem – we are here to guide you. We will then measure up the property in detail and take some images for record-keeping.

Following the Measured Survey, we will send over existing & proposed floor plans within 10 to 20 working days. You are free to amend your proposed plans until you are totally satisfied with your final layout – we do not relax until your layout is perfect. We encourage our customers to take this time to experiment and consider lots of design ideas as you want to be sure before committing to design via planning. A lots of our customers choose to speak with their dedicated designers face to face, over the phone, Skype, Zoom, WhatsApp or on email – it’s completely up to you.

Once you are satisfied with your design, we will prepare your planning application for you. This includes your planning application or permitted development application and anything else we feel would support your application such as a Heritage Report or a Design & Access Statement. This also includes your drawing set (site plan, existing and proposed floor plans, roof plans, sectional details, side elevations etc.). Planning approval generally takes 8-12 weeks. Once we submit your application, your designer will begin to chase the council to ensure it becomes validated. Validation means that the council are registering the application as valid and confirming that they have what they need to make a determination. Once the application is validated, a Case Officer will be assigned. We then make contact with the Case Officer to ensure that they have our details. Sometimes the Case Officer will want to carry out a brief site visit at around week 6 or 7 of the planning period and in this case, we will be in touch with you to book it in. They generally just want to have a quick look around and take some photos.

If you want to build as soon as possible, we would advise getting started on Party Wall (PW) once you have submitted to planning, so you can run the process alongside the 8-12 weeks planning window. Party Wall can be lengthy, especially if your neighbours are not supportive of the works you intend to carry out. It’s important to remember that no neighbour can stop you from building, they can only delay it during the PW negotiations. We have an in-house Party Wall Expert who can serve Notice & draw up the Schedules of Condition. We take a very sympathetic approach when it comes to serving to Notice in the hope of gaining consent to the works which ultimately saves you time and money. We do this by offering information and support if your neighbours have questions or concerns regarding the project.

Once the planning application is accepted, we begin your Building Reg Package. These are the detailed drawings that Building Control and your assigned contractor will require during your construction phase. They are the detailed drawings that show all of the steel placement and specifications, insulation, electrical and plumbing layout etc.

Once we have your detailed construction drawings, we will book in your PCCM. This is a meeting with our construction team where we sit down with you to run through your drawings. Following this meeting, we will send you over our Tender Pack. This pack includes; Construction Estimate, Schedule of Works (SoW) and Construction Programme. Our detailed Construction Estimate & Schedule of Works breaks down all the construction phases with respective costs. With these documents, you will have a comprehensive Tender Package from us. The tender pack will show our build fixed cost and it is then your decision whether you wish to proceed with the Style Building Construction Phase. If you do decide to build with us, your Designer will remain part of the Style Building team until the completion and handover of the project.