About to instruct architect - any tips?

[MotherHeyho]

We are planning a large-scale renovation of a house we moved in to a year ago - replacing current rear extension with a two-story extension and possibly reconfiguring the ground and/or first floor layout.

We have had a good architect recommended to us and we would like to contact him with a view to discussing ideas and getting plans drawn up. I just wondered how much detail we should provide to the architect at this stage to get the best out of him?

We only have a fairly basic idea of what we want to achieve and would like him to come up with some creative ideas that we would be unlikely to come up with ourselves. I do not want to be too prescriptive. On the other hand, I want to provide enough of a steer to ensure that we are on the same page.

Any advice? Any other tips? Thank you.

Make sure you have a good contract. Stage payments for the work, initial design, planning application, building regulations and project management. That way you can control your spending should you get into a disagreement. Hopefully you won’t, but it has been known.
Also, re this, a get out clause at the end of each stage.

When we were appointing our architect for our self build house (which I know is kind of different) I put together a document with a summary of who were, who lived in the house, a background of what we'd liked in other houses/places we'd lived previously, what rooms we thought we wanted, how we would use the spaces, what design styles we liked etc.

I was the same as you of not wanting to limit what ideas or suggestions he might have but then also we'd been planning this for a couple of years so I definitely had opinions on what I did or didn't want.

When I started to feel like surely he already knows some of this stuff I just reminded myself that I'd feel really annoyed if in 3 years time we were having to make changes because I hadn't included something at this briefing stage. At least now I know that if we do end up making changes soon after moving in then it's because something has changed and I didn't think about it rather than poor planning or communication!

So I'd say more information rather than less at this point,

Sorry this ended up very long!

Thank you both so much - excellent advice!