Fawley Chimney Demolition

[Ian_Rob]

I'd be careful going that way.

I asked an architect to come up with a design for a traditional looking brick house on a plot I already had. When the look and layout was decided, I handed it to a firm of design engineers to spec the systems, electrics, and insulation/materials to almost meet passive house levels. I say almost, because I don't like air recycling and much prefer fresh air.

Then I hired a construction manager to build.

On the advice of a friend who owns a large construction business, I confined the architect to drawing what my friend termed pretty pictures.

Just so we can all see the context of your posting and the effectiveness of your approach, why don’t you post some images of the finished house?

 

[Ian_Rob]

As the project progressed, it became clear that the architect was increasingly out of his depth and the structural/mechanical engineers basically took over.

Another area to keep architects out of IMHO is the tendering process. They don't appear to possess anything close to the legal and technical skills necessary to commission significant builds. Worse, they are often conflicted, sometimes to the point of getting commissions (kickbacks) from their favoured contractors.

…and is your view based on a wide experience of architects or just on the person you chose to employ?

 

[dom]

…and is your view based on a wide experience of architects or just on the person you chose to employ?

In answer to your first question, I've no intention of posting a private residence on a public forum. But the project worked out well with a slight time delay.

As to my experience with architects, I've been involved in a number of building projects but am not a professional. My opinions on this are therefore heavily influenced by friends and other people I know who work in the construction business, one of whom builds over 1000 houses per year.

My point therefore stands: a modern largish house (even trad looking ones) now contain formidable amounts of technology. Far from the old boiler with a timer and 1-2-3 hr boosters for gas and water, there are computer systems monitoring myriads of circuits and water flowing in numerous underground circuits. Elsewhere, lighting, data, AV-systems, air-conditioning alarms, fire protection, etc. have all leapt in complexity.

The strong advice given to me was to sit a design engineer at the center of the project as opposed to the architect who created the space, shapes, and material specs. What my building friend jokingly described as "drawing the pretty pictures".

This approach worked well and may be of interest to others.

 

[dom]

I can understand why an engineer might think that.

And as someone who knows DJE well, I'd ask him to run a mechanical project in a heartbeat.

Alas, he builds ever so lightly bigger things than most of us house dwellers would be considering!

 

[DJE]

I remember a meeting during design of a truly spectacular hotel building when the structural engineer looked at some of the weird shapes, he was being asked to cope with and remarked, "I suppose we can make it work but the devil is in the details." "No" replied the architect, "God is in the details!"

It was Foster and Partners and their mastery of space and light was - it has to said - amazing. But there was a huge team of engineers making the building stand up and its systems work. And a project management team getting it designed and built.