The best time to ensure your design is right and that you're completely happy with it is when it is still on paper. Let us give you reassurance that you're on the right design path and that you have a great solution before you are too far along in the process when it's more expensive to make changes.
Gain confidence with an honest expert opinion of your design.
We will review your design drawings, point out areas of concern, and provide suggestions on how to improve things prior to having expensive construction drawings produced. Our design review is the perfect opportunity to fall in love with your design and feel more confident that you're getting exactly what you want or envision - whether the floor plans were sketched by you, drawn by another designer or are a off-the-rack stock plan from a builder, plan book or online planhouse.
DESIGN REVIEW PROCESS
In our Eyes-on Design Review, we provide the following:
1. Get to the essence of the design you are pursuing on your project (your goals, needs, and wants) so that we understand what is absent from the design.
2. Discuss what you like and dislike about the project and what isn't working yet in your current design so we can learn where to focus our efforts in our review.
3. Review and optimize the design to better meet your objectives by uncovering any opportunities to improve the floor plans - be it building form and orientation, aesthetic style, as well as expert strategies that save you time and money during construction.
4. Share our observations and strategies to improve the design with you so that you can move forward with a design that best suits you.
This one week service allows you to confidently move forward building your project knowing you have a design that works for you before you bid, permit or build.
Eyes-on Design Review*
Schedule an
appointment to discuss how we can improve your design for you.
* Flat fee of $500 that includes a limited 'Discovery' call, hand drawn plan or elevation sketch revisions and up to two (2) follow-up emails to ask questions.
COMMON QUESTIONS
+ IS A DESIGN REVIEW RIGHT FOR ME?
A: A Design Review is right for you if you have design sketches/drawings of your project and want an expert opinion on your design. You don't know what you don't know, so having an honest review of your design will give you the added reassurance you are on the right track. This is a peace-of-mind service that allows you to feel confident that your current design choices will meet your needs. Some examples of issues we review include better space efficiency and circulation flow and creating more usable space by optimizing the plan layout. You know you don't want to scrap the whole design, but are intuitively aware the design is not reaching its fullest potential and you can't figure out why. This service is for you if you understand that some integral professional advice will be helpful and increase your opportunity to make your design remarkable.
+ WHAT IF I AM ALREADY WORKING WITH A DESIGNER, ENGINEER OR TECHNOLOGIST??
A: Our Design Review process is meant to feel like a consultation where we give you our design opinion and suggestions for how to improve your design. You are free to incorporate our ideas into the design or not. You can easily share our sketches with your designer so that they can see what design changes you'd like to make to your project. If your current designer is not collaborative in their approach and will resent the involvement of a design professional creating the concept, you may want to reconsider working with that person or determine if our Concept Design Service is the best fit given your current situation. If you are working with an engineer, you should be aware that these design professionals are trained to design the systems of buildings (structural, mechanical, electrical) and very few have any architectural design experience other than what they might glean working along side architects!
+ WHAT IF I DON'T HAVE ACCESS TO THE DESIGN DRAWINGS?
A: Our Eyes-on Design Review process is dependent on having access to your current design drawings. We need to see your design in order to offer suggestions on how to improve it. Without drawings, we cannot provide a design review. Design drawings can be loose sketches, computerized drawings, or blueprints (.pdf, .dwg, jpg, and gif are the preferred file format). If you're unsure as to whether your drawings will be adequate for a review, get in touch with us and inquire. Send us your drawings as you have them and we'll let you know if they are adequate for this service.
+ WHAT IF I DON'T HAVE A SITE OR PROPERTY CHOSEN YET?
A: It's important to select the site prior to creating the concept design for your project so that your home is harmonious with the land (optimizing the design for views, solar orientation, climatic conditions, privacy and other site features or constraints). That said, if you don't have a site picked out yet, we can work with you to nail down your project requirements, define your project goals and objectives, determine your motives and create a project brief that will aid you in selecting the best site for your project. We can go even further by creating some massing studies and test-fit various layout options to see which will work best for which types of sites.
