our services

Clients enjoy working with us because we listen, we're professional and we're great communicators. We are totally transparent, and work in a co-design process with our clients to enable their participation in the process.

footsteps guide
our services
initial consultation

footsteps guide

Our guide ‘footsteps’ is for individuals and home owners to help explain each of the different RIBA work stages - or ‘steps’ that we can undertake for your project and gives examples of the type of drawings, reports, and information we provide. There are 6 steps in total, and we can fulfil just one, or all of them to suit you.   

Barefoot Architects Footsteps Guide

initial design consultation

Most of our projects start with an Initial Design Consultation (IDC), the cost of which is deducted from our fees up to planning if you choose to proceed with us.

This a really useful starting point to explore the potential options for your project and begin to answer the big burning questions you might have! We try and answer things such as how much, how big, how long, who else, and how risky is the project?

We do this first by seeking to understand you, your project, your ambitions and initial ideas, and then sketching things out on an iPad Pro to test and develop our first responses. This way you can see how we can develop ideas to try to meet your brief and budget. It’s a helpful, and often really fun exercise!

You get a comprehensive summary report with advice relating to different aspects of the project (planning, cost, time etc) as well as the drawings undertaken and a detailed Schedule of Fees for us to progress the project with you.

Interior view of a dining room with a wooden table and six chairs, large glass sliding doors leading to a backyard, wooden ceiling beams, and wall-mounted lights, with a person standing outside in the yard.
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the initial design consultation explained

Exploded view of a building with a tree, showing various construction components including a brick wall, internal and external walls, roof, framing, and foundation.

Clients often ask us how we
structure fees for projects, and we explain that like most architects, we base our costs on the anticipated construction cost, or your budget - so long as it is realistic, not optimistic, for the complexity and scale of the project in question!

services + fees

Our Core Services Include:

  • Feasibility studies - site assessments and evaluations;

  • Pre-Application submissions to Local Planning Authorities;

  • Full Planning Applications for a range of homes, housing and community projects from £150k - £10mil construction cost;

  • Full Technical design and Building Regulations submissions;

  • Competitive tendering to a range of known contractors;

  • Tender analysis, interviews and contractor selection;

  • Full Contract Administration services during construction;

  • CDM and Building Regulations Principal Designer services.

  • This service provides the strategic and creative ideas that are so valuable to a project at the early stages. Alongside this we produce the work necessary to submit a planning application. Following a planning approval, we provide sufficient technical information about the building to submit an application for Building Regulations. ween the Client and Contractor. Generally, we would only recommend this route to experienced clients or for very simple projects.

  • This is our most popular service - it is for overseeing a project all the way through to completion. As well as the ideas that we add at the early stages, we also put a lot of time into designing and specifying the building fabric so as to define the quality of the finished building. The result of this is a comprehensive set of construction information for Contractors to price and follow on site, ensuring a competitive tender process and a smooth, cost-controlled build.

  • Over and above the Standard service, this option is for clients who want our input in refining the internal and external details to an extremely high degree, and also allows for more client and on-site meetings. It tends to be helpful for clients who find it difficult to visualise space but want to engage heavily in the design process. We provide full 3D modelling of all the internal and external spaces to assist in our communications with you, which also further enhances the design outcomes.

  • We are always happy to tailor and customise services to suit your specific needs, and can combine or work between service packages at different stages.