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Investing with Clarity
One of the first questions clients ask is: how much will this cost?
Too often in our industry, the answer is vague. Our answer is a plan.
A home project is one of the most significant financial commitments you'll make. Done well, it improves how you live and adds lasting value to your property. Done without clear eyes on the full cost, it becomes a source of stress, compromise, and unexpected bills.
Our role is to give you the whole picture from the very first conversation — not just what the builder will charge, but the Total Project Cost: professional fees, statutory requirements, VAT, finishes, and a realistic contingency. We replace uncertainty with a strategy.
Construction Realities
Construction costs have shifted significantly since 2019. Inflation, supply chain disruption, and increased labour costs mean that pre-pandemic benchmarks — or estimates based on what friends paid for their extension five years ago — are no longer a reliable guide.
We work with trusted quantity surveyors who provide independent, market-tested cost advice at every stage of your project. Their role isn't to make the numbers look comfortable — it's to make sure your budget is robust enough to deliver your vision in the current climate, without surprises on site.
Realistic budgeting isn't pessimism. It's the foundation of a project that finishes well.
The Whole Picture - Total Project Cost
Whether you have a fixed budget or a flexible vision, we approach cost planning in one of two ways:
- Working Backwards: starting with your total fund and establishing what's achievable within it.
- Working Forwards: starting with your brief and building the investment plan around what it will realistically cost to deliver it.
In both cases, we ensure you're looking at the Total Project Cost, not just the builder's quote. That means planning for:
- Construction — labour, materials, contractor preliminaries, and site costs.
- The team — architect, structural engineer, quantity surveyor, and any specialist consultants your project requires.
- Compliance — planning fees, building control, and statutory surveys such as ecology, soil investigation, or tree reports where required.
Interiors — kitchens, joinery, bathrooms, ironmongery, and lighting. These are often excluded from contractor quotes entirely. As part of our integrated service, we coordinate these elements as part of the design — so nothing is left to chance, and nothing undermines the architecture at the final stage.
The reality — VAT, which is typically 20% on new build and refurbishment work, and a sensible contingency fund. We recommend a minimum of 10% on refurbishments and 5% on new build.
Early decisions on scope and phasing have the biggest impact on your budget. By mapping this out during Design Discovery, we ensure you spend your money where it adds the most value — to how you live, and to the long-term value of your home.
The Projects We Work On
We work on a selective number of projects at any one time, with director involvement from first sketch to final handover. That level of involvement requires projects where the investment — in design, in materials, in construction quality — justifies the commitment on both sides.
As a guide:
Our sweet spot — residential projects with a construction value of £300,000 to £1 million, where considered design and careful specification make a material difference to the outcome.
Entry point — we typically work on full refurbishments, extensions, and new builds from £200,000 construction value.
Smaller works — we occasionally take on projects below this threshold where the brief, the site, or the client is a genuinely strong fit for what we do. If you're unsure whether your project qualifies, the best thing to do is have a conversation.
How Our Fees Work
A full architectural service — from Design Discovery to final handover — typically represents 8 to 15% of the net construction cost, depending on the scale, complexity, and scope of the project. We don't charge a fixed percentage. We structure our fees to give you certainty where possible and flexibility where it's needed.
Design Discovery, Shaping Ideas, and Design in Detail are charged as fixed lump sums. You know exactly what you're paying and exactly what you receive. This allows us to focus on the quality of the work without the clock ticking.
Get Ready to Build — tender management and contractor selection — is charged at an hourly rate. If the process runs smoothly, you pay less. If a contractor needs managing, a tender needs renegotiating, or a planning condition needs resolving, we have the time and the incentive to fight your corner.
Getting it Built — contract administration and site visits — is charged at a fixed weekly rate based on an agreed programme. This ensures we're on site consistently, answering the contractor's questions, protecting the design intent, and protecting your investment for as long as the build takes.
Principal Designer — a statutory requirement under CDM regulations — is a fixed fee covering the full project duration, included as standard in our service.
Following our initial consultation, we provide a detailed, itemised fee proposal for each stage. You'll know exactly what you're paying for and why, before you commit to anything.
The Stages in Detail
Below is a stage-by-stage breakdown of what's included and what each stage costs. Every project receives a detailed, itemised proposal, these figures are a guide to help you plan.
Every project begins the same way, by uncovering what's possible. We ask questions and listen carefully, not just to what you want to build, but to how you want to live. The brief is the framework for everything that follows, and these early conversations are critical to a successful outcome.
From the outset it's important to be honest: what are we trying to achieve, how much might it cost, whether you can afford it. We'll explore different levels of intervention, from modest to more ambitious, so you can see the full range of what's possible for your project.
We'll also talk about what sustainability means to you, the materials and finishes you want to live with every day, and the role you want us to play in delivering your project.
By the end of Design Discovery, you'll have a professionally commissioned survey, independent budget estimate, sketch layout options, and a clear picture of what's achievable - everything you need to make a confident decision, whatever you decide.
This is the creative heart of the process. With a design direction agreed at Design Discovery, we develop the concept, defining the flow, form, and feeling of your home. We shape ideas into considered design options, tested against your budget and the fabric of your building.
To make sure everything stacks up, we bring in trusted structural engineers and cost consultants early. At the same time, we look carefully at the energy strategy, how your home is heated, cooled, and ventilated. That means exploring options like solar panels, air-source heat pumps, MVHR, and triple glazing. Together with choices about construction systems and materials, these decisions shape the long-term performance and comfort of your home.
Alongside the structural and energy strategy, we begin developing the material and specification palette for your project. We reach out to the manufacturers and suppliers we trust, exploring construction systems like Blokbuild and Porotherm, natural insulation from Acara Concepts, and outline specifications for finishes including clay plasters, natural renders, and considered ironmongery. These aren't afterthoughts — they're design decisions that shape how your home feels to live in, and how it performs over decades. In the short term, they are also critical factors that help you decide where to spend your money. You can read more about the materials and methods we believe in on our Convictions page.
By the end of this stage, you'll have drawings, 3D visuals, and independent cost advice that give you confidence your chosen design is exciting, realistic, and achievable.
With the concept agreed, we refine the design, resolve the details, and prepare everything needed for a planning application. This is the stage where the scheme becomes real.
We coordinate the full consultant team; structural engineer, cost consultant, and any specialists your project requires, ensuring every element is technically resolved before anything is submitted. Hayley leads this coordination, making sure design intent and technical delivery are speaking the same language.
We prepare and submit your planning application, managing the process with the local authority on your behalf. Where pre-application discussions are worthwhile, we'll recommend them. Where negotiations are needed, we handle them.
By the end of this stage, you have a planning consent and a design that's fully resolved, ready to develop into a technical package.
Planning secured, we now prepare the complete technical package your contractor needs to price and build the project accurately. This is the stage that protects your budget and your design on site.
We produce detailed construction drawings, a full specification, and coordinate building regulations approval. Every material, every junction, every detail is resolved on paper before it's resolved on site, because decisions made at this stage cost far less than changes made during construction.
We manage the tender process, preparing the tender package, inviting selected contractors to price, and evaluating returns. We help you appoint the right contractor for your project, not just the cheapest one.
Where your project is pursuing Passivhaus certification, we coordinate closely with your Passivhaus consultant at this stage to ensure the technical package meets the required standard before work begins.
This is where the project becomes a building. We administer the contract, carry out regular site inspections, and chair site meetings, protecting the design intent and your investment throughout the construction process.
Our role on site is to be your advocate. We review the contractor's work against the drawings and specification, manage the financial process, and make sure the programme stays on track. When problems arise, and on any building project, some always do, we resolve them quickly.
We manage the handover process, ensuring snagging is completed properly and the building is finished to the standard the design deserves.
By the time you're handed your keys, you'll have a home that performs as well as it looks, built to the drawings, finished to the specification, and ready to live in.
*fees are charged weekly at £450 + VAT during construction
Once your home is handed over, we remain available to support you, whether that's returning to site to address snagging that emerges in use, advising on minor works, or helping you think about the next phase of your project.
Post-handover work is charged at our standard hourly rate, agreed in advance. There's no obligation, but we're here if you need us.
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