Patrick Hansford Associates

We have completed the charrette with the Owners. We have returned to our office and developed the ideas generated during the charrette into rough concepts. If you remember, we developed three ideas for The Farm.

Generating these multiple ideas quickly allows our clients to look at as many ideas as possible for their project. From these rough concepts, we work with our clients to develop the schematic design. By definition, the schematic design will begin to define the spatial qualities, materials, and construction methods for the project. The drawings generated during schematic design are not suitable for construction, but a quality contractor can typically use the schematic design to begin developing a construction budget. It is the responsiblity of the Owner to contract with a contractor to construct the project and provide assistance in developing budgets. We can provide general costs, typically based on a square foot basis or a item-by item basis. Currently we are seeing additions being constructed for $100 to $120 a square foot. A standard kitchen renovation can start at $30,000 and go as high as $60,000. The cost in kitchens is the cabinetry, countertops (granite typcially) and plumbing/electrical. Costs are not necessary for materials as much as for labor. It takes great skill to do an addition where the new floors align with the exsiting floor. You need to find the right builder who specializes in additions and renovations. 

The schematic design is the when we start generating drawings on the computer. We show the existing plan of the house and the walls, doors, windows and so on that will be removed; commonly called a demolition plan. We also show the new work in plan form. We also begin to provide exterior elevations. Depending on the complexity of the project, schematic design drawings may include a building section.

A few comments about architectural drawings. Many people have trouble “reading” architectural drawings. A floor plan is a top view of your house with the roof removed. If you can imagine hovering above your house in a helicopter and you could remove the roof....... that’s a floor plan. An exterior elevation is what the front, side and back of your house looks like if you were standing across the street or in your neighbor’s yard. Architectural drawings are two-dimensional representations of three-dimensional objects, in our case a house. We develop a variety of drawings to represent this complex 3-D object. The contractor will eventually use these drawings to construct your house.

Back to the project at hand........

The Owner’s have reviewed the rough concepts and decided to use Concept A with a few changes. There is nothing wrong with that and it is quite typical. If fact - we encourage this type of input from our clients. Remember - INFORMED DECISIONS. The design will continually be refined throughout the design process.

One decision that has been made is the existing fireplace is to be removed. It does not work and the cost to repair the flue is outside of the budget. There are still a few questions about the lay-out of closets and the front entry........ So we have provided two more concepts based on removing the fireplace.

Some of the changes include eliminating one of the closets on the first floor and making it a computer cubby. This will allow Mom to monitor activity as the children get older and begin to access the internet. The cubby might have shelves intitally to allow for toy storage, but as the children get older, the shelves can be removed and a countertop installed at deck height. This allows for some flexibility.

The general plan of the Master bathroom has been approved. The client has some questions about window placement and possible relocating exisitng windows that are being removed as part of the project. We will look into these issues and provide some ideas for the Owner to review.

Remember - nothing is cast in stone, flexibility is the key word..... particularly on our part. We need to remove our ego from the process and provide sound advice based on our experience. If we feel something is not the best solution, we need to demonstrate this to the client. The process is not about us doing everything the client wants........ we would not be providing good service if we did not inform our clients of our opinions.

Here are the two concepts for the first floor at Schematic Design and the Master bathroom. The exterior elevations have begun to be developed and those are also provided to the clients. Compare them with the photos of the existing house.

The completion of the Schematic Design is another pausing point for our clients to review the design and to respond with questions. Typically, there are still changes requested by the Owner, but as time goes by, the changes are less and less, but focused more on details rather than large concepts.

Next time - We take the comments from the Schematic Design and begin to develop the construction drawings. Guess what...... design decisions are still being made.