I am frequently asked, normally within a few minutes of seeing a property “Well, what do you think it’s going to look like then?”.

And it’s not that I’m being evasive, or forcing you to part with money but the answer to the question obviously comes about after some thought and consideration. Good design takes time and is the result of a careful analysis of the clients requirements, an analysis of the existing house or site and analysis of what will get through planning.

Therefore with an existing house or site, the starting point comes with the survey; That is a measured survey that shows exactly what the existing building is; and it it is only when this is done and drawn up that any design work can commence.

Below you can see a set of survey notes that I’ll be drawing up this afternoon. This measured survey (which incidentally is undertaken personally by myself) is so important that it forms an important part of the architectural education with it undertaken and marked several times during the course:

Survey notes on existing house

Probably not the most neatest of notes (and for completeness there should be diagonals horizontally and vertically,nb there is another sheet of elevation and site dimensions) but the test of whether they are any good is whether you can hand them over to someone else to draw up the survey without problem – incidentally I’ll also be personally drawing them up 🙂