Small project success means life-changing help

We hope everyone has been able to relax over the last few days of Christmas. We don’t know about you, but for us the last month has been super hectic, juggling design work deadlines, site visits and childcare amongst other things! Fortunately though we managed to have a few days off to see some of the family, which was great.  

We thought it would be nice to end 2022 on a high note, with a tale of another happy client. Here’s a little story of another happy customer who is delighted with the Planning Permission success for her project in Sheffield. The Planning Officer initially asked for the project to be made smaller but I managed to argue the case for the project remaining larger as originally shown. We confirmed we’d thought about the planners concerns all along, as part of the design process. The objection related to the residual garden amenity area left over after an annexe was added in the rear garden. 

As a bit of background, this is a project without a big budget, but if built successfully will make a massive difference to our client and her family. Our client’s mother has osteoporosis and is disabled. Her husband is getting older and finding it hard to care for her on his own. As a result we’ve been asked to design a standalone annexe in the back garden of my client’s home. This means my client’s parents can have their own independent and accessible accommodation while having the extra support of my client nearby. There is a budget of about £75k. I know that for some architectural practices they are only interested in the bigger ticket clients with minimum budgets of £250k as they are more profitable. 

What does this mean for the smaller projects and clients with smaller budgets? Are they are not suitable for professional architectural design that makes a difference? Is good quality architecture only available for wealthy clients? 

For our architectural practice it’s not just about the big ticket clients and flashy projects, it’s also about the smaller, less sexy projects that make a positive difference to our communities. We don’t have a minimum construction budget for new projects. These projects may not be as exciting as some other projects out there, but they are helping ordinary people. People like you and me, their families and our communities. Hopefully. we can help make a difference, no matter how small. Personally, I find this quite exciting!

Looking forward to helping more clients be happy next year, during 2023. 🙂