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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:
Assemble a great project team: Your Architect and Project Manager will be key to the creative direction of your scheme and the rigour with which it is executed; the skill and effort that will go into these roles is not to be underestimated. They in turn can assist you to engage with other consultants, specialists and contractors who will each contribute to the realisation of the design intent. When selecting the core members of your design team take time to understand their ethos, approach, expertise and interests. While cost will usually be a consideration, remember that a great team will deliver value and pay for itself many times over.
Brief well: The time you spend creating a comprehensive and well considered project brief will pay dividends for years to come. Describe your key motivations for the project, articulate the hierarchy of your requirements, and brief with breadth and depth of thought. Your brief should cover each of our 7 project keystones, combining your scope and design aspirations with your thoughts on budget and timelines.
Define your objective, not your solutions: Good designers are trained to think laterally, not to create novelty for its own sake but to test ideas and optimise solutions. By briefing your designer with your key intentions (i.e. to create a living space that feels generous and more conducive to socialising, rather than prescribing 20 square metres of extension and space for 2 additional sofas) your design team may also be able to develop alternative solutions that could bring considerable benefits. As well as testing the more obvious solutions (i.e. building an extension), alternative strategies (i.e. replanning the circulation between existing rooms to improve sightlines between spaces, and developing some bespoke joinery solutions to combine storage with seating) might go much further to achieving your objective while also being much cheaper and quicker to construct and preserving garden space.