www.extend-my-house.co.uk is an architectural service with a difference…
It’s a nationwide, web-based service with low, fixed, all-inclusive fees
Extend-my-house has just been launched as a new concept for the home improvement market. It is an architectural practice with a difference: in fact it’s the first of it kind being nationwide, web-based and exclusively tailored to homeowners looking to extend or improve their homes. It has been launched by Stuart Buckenham, a chartered architect, with the aim of a more transparent architectural service, allowing homeowners to use the services of a professional architect, when they otherwise may not have been able to, or would have thought to.
Architectural services are not usually the most transparent or easy to understand service that a client will commission and many are confused about what an architect does or can offer them, or if an architect is required at all. Extend-my-house addresses this by providing a clear website where clients can test different options for projects (and use a build cost calculator to price them up), understand how the process works and for the first time ever instantly see how much the architect’s fee will be. The fees are instantly available without form-filling for all project variations. Project elements can be combined at discounted rates. The fees are all-inclusive as well, including fees to the council and structural engineers fee (where relevant).
“We shape our buildings, thereafter they shape us”, Winston Churchill
There is huge debate amongst self-builders and homeowners about how best to translate ideas for a project into built form. Primarily this centres around whether to use an architect, a technologist or an unqualified “architectural designer”. It is argued by many that the difference is an architect will come up with ideas the technologist could not but the technologist is better at getting things built. The “architectural designer” could be a good designer or may have good construction skills but it’s a shot in the dark and they are unregulated. Its fair to say there are good and bad in each, but an architect’s training, spatial awareness, professionalism and adherence to codes of conduct, regulation and knowledge of construction gives them a skill set that should make them first on most people’s list. However many architects will not take on small commissions and the ones that do may not always make them their priority. So people have limited choice and the cost of the service may often be prohibitive, or perceived as prohibitive.
With the advent of Grand Designs and the raft of home improvement TV shows, many of today’s clients have a fairly developed idea of what they want from their build and want an efficient, reliable service to translate it for them. Some may therefore think its best to go straight to a builder and tell them what they want. However if ideas are just literally translated the results may be disappointing. And handing control of your project over to a builder could be a disaster. Extend-my-house therefore offers clients a streamlined, professional, online architectural service: providing design input, professional drawings, experience with local authority applications and construction knowledge, all honed through years of experience on a variety of domestic projects and carried out by chartered architects.
Extend-my-house offers a rapid service with each project treated as a top priority. When an order is placed clients can submit their briefs or alternatively fill out a design questionnaire. On receipt of this and subsequent telephone conversations/emails as necessary, an approved surveyor local to the project will visit the site to carry out a measured survey relevant to the project type selected. Extend-my-house will then prepare design drawings, which are emailed to the client for approval. Clients can then submit amendments to the design. After this Extend-my-house will apply for local authority permissions as necessary working towards a set of drawings that can be used as a basis for a contract with a builder. Extend-my-house can also help shortlist and appoint builders if required.
