How to get the house plan you want!

Wantobe

We've met two different architects so far and one engineer that someone recommended to us. I appreciate we are not 'dream' clients as we have a budget that we intend ( in so far as possible) to stick to and we also ( shock horror ) have strong ideas about what kind of house we would like to live in/:p

I'm being a bit facetious but both architects pretty much dismissed our ideas in favour of their own, admittedly, beautiful design inspiration and the engineer reproduced what we would like but with no initiative as to orientation or how to over come some design problems.

We've now paid for meeting the engineer twice and have paid an architect for a set of plans ( basic first draft) that we really have no enthusiasm for.

We have built a house before and have an idea of the kind of flow that suits us as a family but that doesn't seem to gel with the architects- we went into the meetings with the architects with great ideas ( or so we thought), with some rough ideas as to floor plans that would work for us and ( I know this is a turn off for architects) a house that we had seen on Grand Designs that we really loved, elements of which we wanted to incorporate into our new home.

The thing is that when we built our first house we actually designed it ourselves with the help of an engineer and although we loved it, we felt the volume of some rooms were wrong- so for eg we didnt put enough space in the living areas and too much in the bedrooms and also the flow was fine when we didnt have children but the dynamic changed when we did. So those are things we didn't want to do again and that is why this time we felt that an architect was a worthwhile investment.

Do we have the wrong architect or is it that architects will design as they want only?

sinnerboy

Yes you have the wrong architect and no we dont all design to our own ideas solely. Keep looking .

Poor Uncle Tom

Here's a notion, sit down with some good local Architectural Technicians for a change and see how you get on.

No6

All clients are dream clients in the current market!! you have the wrong Architect, as tom says look for a good local AT or different Architect, It might be their design but its your house!! There may of course be issues with planning and what is accecptable in terms of design which may tie the hands of any professional working for you but this should be explained to you if its an issue with what you want!!!

AidanD12

+1 on the previous comments.
I went through the same process 4 months ago and sat down with 5 architects and 1 architect technician. 3 of them were just as you described but the other 3 had much more accommodating approach. Ended up going with the AT and he's an absolute pleasure to work with and I'm submitting a plan next week that I'm just delighted with. Took all my suggestions and asked all the right questions and just moulded it all into a great layout that suits us.. worth every cent. Keep looking, probably the most important decision you'll make so have patience and get the right person that you have 100% confidence in. Good Luck.

cokecans

+1 Keep looking

We went through two sets of planning application (both successful) and our experience could not have been more different:

First time, we brought lots of conceptual ideas to a recommended professional, who smiled and handed us a folder of plans and said pick one of these and we will work off it. Not knowing any better, we poured huge amounts of our own time into the design effort, resulting in plans were good but not really what we wanted (but planning permission secured).

Not being fully happy we placed the house on hold. When planning was starting to run out we tried again, but this time were more particular about whose recommendations we sought. He met us a number of times both on site and at home. He asked loads of questions on ideal room sizes, how we use living space, energy efficiency, what type of look we were going for, ....etc. A few weeks later he came back with sketches for input, later he brought more detailed drawings. The results are (in our opinion) fantastic.

Long story short - keep looking.

Wantobe

Thanks for the replies. I'm a bit disillusioned at the moment but I suppose we will have to try again- one thing I'm sure of is that we are not able to come up with the right ideas ourselves.

We did try to go for recommendations- one of the architects was recommended to us and the other we met through the simon open door charity day. The engineer was highly recommended to us by another ( non design) engineer who then looked at the plans his friend had drawn up and rubbished them!:rolleyes:

I don't know much about architectural technicians so I'll have to look into that- do they normally design also?

sinnerboy

Yes many do. Don't be too disillusioned - you have not built anything yet. Plan for 2 years build for one year. Live happy then for 25+ years.

beyondpassive

Wantobe wrote: »

we have strong ideas about what kind of house we would like to live in/:p

Just be wary that you should aim to get the house you need rather than the house you thought you wanted. In two years time as you move in, you might have very different ideas about how your home should look, feel and operate. I've learned alot from the experiences of selfbuilders on this forum about how critically important the minor details of a build become as the project advances, as they say the devil is in the details. A good Arch understands this and it is meat and veg for a good AT. An ideal project is one where you have the well honed eye and sensitivities of a trained Architect with the technical competence of an Architectural Technologist. The experience of many here would be to design the house from a comfort and space point of view rather than trying to squeeze rooms into a 'cute' elevation.