The Brief
At Nest, the process begins by listening to you. You are the fundamental driving force behind your project and the decisions that will be made. Developing an initial brief gives us the chance to understand your aspirations and motivations for investing in your home. The process also takes into account critical factors such as what your budget is, as well as any evident planning and technical issues that may impact what you hope to achieve. After an initial phone consultation, we’ll come out to meet you and view your property. During this visit, we’ll gather all the information we need to form your design brief.
Measured Survey
To progress with your project, an accurate and up-to-date measured building survey of your property will be required. This is not a survey of the condition of your home but rather a representation of the physical building and site elements, such as floor and ceiling heights, changes in materials, door and window positions and so on. This ensures that any design work moving forward is based on accurate and reliable information that is true to what exists in real life. Without this, several issues can arise that can impact your planning permission or cause serious issues or delays on site during construction.
Concept Design
To seek out the best possible design, we must first understand what the different principal options are. In most cases, projects start with a flurry of ideas, each with their own potential pros and cons. A series of high-level sketch options form the basis of initial design discussions, to seek out what is most important to you and how best to achieve your goals.
Feasibility Study
Informed by the concept designs, the feasibility study develops a number of hand-drawn layout options and variations, in more detail. These may include some initial elevation studies that explore how any new building elements or extensions look from the outside. This process allows us to develop a number of possibilities for discussion, to ensure that your requirements are being met in full and that you are involved in the design development of your project. During this process, we run an internal cost review to ensure feasibility options relate to agreed project budgets, and if necessary make changes within this initial stage.
Budget Review
One of the most important and challenging things we do is to ensure we design the best possible project for your budget. There is little point in designing and gaining planning permission for something you later find is unaffordable. Our in-house design and construction teams work collaboratively from the very start of your project, ensuring feedback relating to build costs are obtained and understood early. This process is at the heart of our business and ensures you receive designs that can be delivered within budget and to a high standard.
Planning Application
Once previous stages have been completed, we’ll handle your planning application for you, alongside a coordinated team of trusted external consultants, if these are required.
We pride ourselves on the quality and integrity of our designs, ensuring all our applications submitted to your Local Authority are carefully considered and professionally presented. This approach is guided by our extensive experience, allowing us to achieve planning permission for ambitious projects that hold the best possible value for our clients. We are also experienced in managing projects within conservation areas and gaining Listed Building Consent for heritage properties, and if needed, we have specialist planning consultants to advise on more complex applications.
Construction Drawings & Building Regulations
Gaining building regulation approval is a statutory requirement that must take place before construction can begin. Applying for approval ensures that all new building works comply with current safety standards, focusing on elements such as structure, drainage, building insulation, electrical works, fire and so on.
Some projects are complex enough to warrant more detailed construction drawings being produced beyond building regulations. These provide our build team with a more detailed and thorough set of instructions to follow on site.
This in turn, reduces construction risk and clarifies details ahead of time, ensuring the process runs as smoothly as possible.
Technical Support
At Nest, we are proud to have so many disciplines working under one roof. It allows us to effectively manage and coordinate your project from start to finish.
When further technical support is needed, however, we are here to manage that process for you. This might include appointing and liaising with structural or civil engineers, party wall surveyors, planning consultants and so on.
