The opening stage.

Every engagement starts with the same four weeks, priced on its own and not folded into the project fee. It covers a survey, the daylight study, a program written with the client, and three plan options at 1:100.

At the end of the four weeks either side can stop, and the client keeps the drawings. We have ended five engagements this way since 2020, and in each case the reason surfaced in week two rather than month eight.

What we ask for.

We need a budget figure, a date that matters, and the name of the person who decides. Projects without all three tend to produce drawings that please everyone in the room and no one afterward.

We also ask for photographs of rooms the client likes, including rooms they cannot explain. Those are more useful than a list of styles, because they tend to share a quality of light rather than a look.

After the four weeks.

The full fee is set once the program is fixed, as a percentage of construction cost with a floor. We publish the floor, which in 2026 is 18,000 euros, so a small project is not quoted into silence.

From there the stages are conventional: design development, construction drawings, tender, and site. The difference is that the brief arriving at design development has already been tested.