The gap nobody talks about

Most people building a new home discover it too late.

They've spent months working with an architect/architectural technologist/architectural designer/technician. They've got a design they love, something that feels right, that fits the site, that matches how they want to live. Planning comes through. Everyone's pleased.

Then the build starts.

And somewhere between the drawings and the reality, things start to shift. Details get value-engineered out. A material gets substituted because the contractor can get something cheaper. A junction that looked clean on paper turns out to be awkward to build, so it gets simplified. Nobody tells the client any of this at the time. They find out when they're standing in the finished house wondering why it doesn't quite feel the way they imagined.

I've seen this happen more times than I care to count. And I understand exactly why it happens, because before I was ever a chartered architectural technologist I was on the other side of it.

I started in construction as a labourer. I worked my way through bricklaying, foreman work, running my own construction company. Long before I was designing buildings, I was building them, reading other people's drawings, working out what was practical and what wasn't, understanding where the gaps were between what the architect/designer intended and what actually got built.

That background changes the way I design. Not because I talk about it, but because it's in every decision I make before a drawing ever leaves this office.

When I'm working through a detail, I'm not just thinking about how it looks. I'm thinking about who's going to build it, what they'll do when they hit a problem on site, and whether the design gives them room to do it right or tempts them to cut a corner. When I'm specifying a material, I'm thinking about what happens when the contractor prices it and decides it's too expensive, and whether there's a good alternative we should have already considered. When I'm designing a junction, I'm thinking about whether it's actually buildable by the people who'll be standing there with tools in their hands.

That's not a skill you get from a studio. It comes from having been that person.

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Here's what I think a self-build client actually needs from a designer... and it isn't what most people describe when they talk about finding the right one.

You need someone who treats design and construction as one continuous process, not two separate handoffs. The drawings are not the finished product. The house is the finished product. Every decision in the design phase is a decision about how the build will go, what it will cost, and what you'll be living in at the end.

You also need someone who understands that a sensitive site... green belt, rural setting, planning constraints, difficult ground, isn't just a design challenge. It's a construction challenge. Getting planning approval is one thing. Delivering the building on that site without the project unravelling is something else entirely.

And perhaps most importantly, you need someone who will still be engaged when things get difficult on site. Because they always do. Not catastrophically, but decisions get made, questions come up, and if your designer is distant or disengaged by the time you're in the ground, those decisions get made without the right person in the room.

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At Habitat Architecture, I design Contemporary Classic homes. That's a particular kind of architecture, buildings that feel rooted in their landscape, that use traditional forms and honest materials, but that are genuinely contemporary in how they work and how they live.

But the design is only part of it. The reason I set up this practice the way I did is because I wanted to close the gap, the one between the home somebody imagines at the start of the process and the home they actually end up with.

That gap exists because most architectural practices are set up as design services, not building services. They hand over drawings and step back. What happens next is somebody else's problem.

I don't think that's good enough. And I suspect that if you're reading this, you don't either.

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If you're in the early stages of thinking about a self-build, or you've got a site and you're not sure what's actually possible, I'm always happy to have a conversation. Not a sales meeting, just a conversation. There's usually something useful to say at that stage, even before there's a formal project to talk about.

That's the kind of practice I want to run. And that's what this blog is going to be about, honest, practical thinking about architecture, design, and building, from someone who's stood on both sides of it.

Roger Hines

Chartered Architectural Technologist

Habitat Architecture