Architect Meetings

[ElleMcElle]

Hello! Just wondering how many architects people generally meet before undertaking a reasonably big domestic project - side return extension, loft extension and medium-scale refurb. We're lining up 4 or 5 and could go on forever, but we don't want to drag it out more than necessary! And what sort of factors should we think about when making a decision? Thanks!

I've set up 3 meetings for our extension and will take it from there once we've spoken to them all.

I met 4. To be honest, the quotes were what made our decision for us. Within the Riba guidelines, there is some flexibility about what's included at each stage.

So 2 of them included drawings for the tender as stage 3 (after initial drawings and quotes) and 2 of them included them as stage 4, which basically added an extra £4-5k to the quote. Of the 2 cheaper ones, we ended up going with the one that was more local, but I liked them both.

Sorry should have said after initial drawings and planning permission applications... makes more sense.

Thank you! This is a massive process, isn't it?!

Yup - from now the architect reckons:
2 months to do drawings and decide on a design
2 months in planning
2 months to redo drawings for tender and put out tender bids

so 6 months just to get ready before we even have the builders booked.

But we have a non-standard house and are slightly unsure of where we're going to put things, so may be quicker if you knwo what you're doing.

stokey sounds like you're much further along in the process than we are, can I pick your brains for some info please? We've just had one architect out to look at the house before we'd even bid on it so there was no discussion about actual design or fees etc, it was very much a 'can we extend and ball park how much for xyz'
What's involved at the 4 different stages of the process with the architects and do they charge a portion of fees at each stage? How did providing the drawing at stage 3 increase the fees so dramatically?
Thanks

It depends on the architect Alias. but they tend to split it up with a price for each stage.
here's a link to the Riba plan. I don;t really understand why the price difference was so huge, I thought i'd misunderstood it so stuck it all in a spreadsheet and got Dh to double check, but the ones that included the post-planning drawings as a separate stage charged more accordingly. There are also further charges at project management stage depending on how involved you want them to be later, but I'm hoping I can do that myself and the design is where you really need architectural input.

What we found was the smaller firms - essentially one or two people - were far cheaper than the larger firms. But we're in London so prices are £££ anyway.

We invited 4 over plus interviewed one on the phone. Ended up going for the most expensive one but not because of that. Half way through the build now and things seem to be going OK.
I think if you have a few over you'll find one who's good. We had one with not much about him, one who was like an extravagant car salesman and two who seemed good.