Journal

In your role as client you will have great opportunities to promote high quality design within your project, and you will also then enjoy and benefit from it for many years to come. Design and the process through which it is created can be subtle and delicate. Like tending to a garden, you will need to nurture the design process regularly and diligently, allowing it to grow and thrive. There are a number of steps that you can take to encourage great design in your project:

We use the term design to describe the qualitative nature of a scheme, in contrast to scope that describes it quantitatively. An extension may provide say 35 square metres of open plan living space, with kitchen, dining and sitting zones (the scope). The same space might create a lofty and spacious feel, from materials with natural grains and textures, be laid out to maximise efficiency and elegance of the plan, to perform to a very high environmental standard that is com

It is important not to confuse ‘design’ with the term ‘designer’, generally used to denote high priced luxury goods. Design is about quality, but in the context of a building project it doesn’t necessarily equate to high cost. On the contrary, good design has the potential to save time and money while also achieving quality. Good design develops out of a clear brief, testing the project parameters through a thorough and robust feasibility process, and designing with const