A walk through the initial design process: how we need your input and why we need to listen.
— 27 January 2022 by Justin Watts
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Update your browser!— 27 January 2022 by Justin Watts
As a practice based in beautiful Devon we are fortunate enough to work on projects situated in some of the most stunning coastal and rural landscapes in the country. We therefore place a great deal of emphasis on the design process for a new building, to make sure that we leave the site in a better state than we found it.
To enable us to achieve this goal, and determine how you wish to use the spaces we are designing for you, we will first produce an initial portfolio, named the Opportunities & Constraints Document, which is designed to really test the options and approaches that any site or building can present.
All good architects should sketch and develop ideas, but much of this process is behind closed doors and rarely do clients have the chance to see the process and the discarded options. Sometimes this may be for the best but often this can exclude the client from a process that they really should be a key part of, after all it is your home we are designing!
Our O&C document looks to see how varying interpretations of the brief may look and gives us all a chance to discuss the benefits or possible pitfalls of each approach. It also offers the opportunity to test how far you might be willing to push the design boundaries and budget of a scheme and allows us to move the design process together collaboratively.
As an example, we were asked to help a couple in North Devon who loved where they lived but had come to realise that their chalet bungalow was neither fit for purpose nor what they wanted any more.
Our brief was to be bold! We set to thinking how we could we use the bones of what we had but give them the quality of space internally to entertain, and carry on with their hobbies of sculpture and art as well as provide a thermally efficient and modern home.
The original house has been well looked after but like many chalet bungalows had been altered and extended over the years and this had lead to a unbalanced home, but one with many strong memories.
Sitting with the family over many occasions we were able to discuss and tease out of them what was important to them, which parts of the house and gardens held special meaning, where they sat in the garden, where the weather was the worse on site and build a picture of their needs as well as their wants.
We then started developing diagrams on how the spaces can be used and importantly how they relate to one another and the light and sun. From this base we then worked at how these spaces could be articulated on the site and how those articulations could take very different approaches.
The three videos below show how from just one brief very different styles of building can be developed. The sculptural approach was driven from the client's own interests and their drive to really move away from a chalet bungalow and a clear desire not to simply add dormers to the original building.
By modelling in this way we were able to use our virtual reality (VR) kit in the office to walk the client through the spaces and let them feel the flow and type of space that each option offered.