You are not signing up to anything. The initial consultation is free, it happens at the property wherever possible, and it exists so that any advice or quote that follows is based on your actual building rather than on a description of it.
Here is exactly what it involves, so you know what you are walking into.
What it is
The consultation covers four things:
- A review of the site constraints — what the property, its position and its planning status will and will not allow.
- A discussion of your design aspirations and functional requirements — what you want, and separately, what the building actually has to do.
- Identification of the planning or technical challenges we can see from the outset.
- An outline of next steps and indicative timelines.
That is the whole agenda. It is a professional assessment of whether your project is achievable and what it would take.
What it is not
It is not a design meeting. You will not leave with drawings, and anyone who arrives at a first meeting with a design has designed it without knowing your building.
It is not a sales pitch. There is nothing to buy in the room.
It is not a survey. If the project proceeds and no accurate record of the building exists, a measured survey — and on some sites a topographical survey — is procured at Stage 1. Walking round with a notepad does not replace that.
Before we meet
The more you send in advance, the more useful the time on site is. None of this is compulsory, and not having it will not stop the meeting.
- The full address, including the postcode. Most of the constraint checking is done from that alone.
- Photographs, inside and out, if we are meeting remotely or if there are parts of the building we should see in advance.
- Your title plan or deeds, if you have them to hand. Boundaries and restrictive covenants both matter, and covenants are outside the planning system entirely.
- Anything you already hold on the property: existing drawings, a previous survey, an old planning decision, a structural report, an estate agent's floorplan.
- A rough budget. This is the one that changes the quality of the advice most. A budget is not a commitment and we are not going to spend it for you — but the difference between what is sensible at one figure and at another is substantial, and knowing it early stops us all designing something that cannot be built.
- Your must-haves, separated from your would-likes. Write both lists. The exercise of separating them is worth doing on its own.
On the day
We walk the site and the building with you. Orientation and where the light falls, levels, access, the condition of what is there, drainage, the relationship with the neighbours, trees, and anything that will make construction difficult.
We talk about what you want — not just the rooms, but how the household actually uses the house now and what is failing about it. The brief that comes out of that conversation is usually a better brief than the one people arrive with, because it is about the problem rather than the solution.
We tell you what we can see coming. Whether the property is listed or in a conservation area, whether it sits in the Broads executive area and is therefore determined by the Broads Authority rather than a district council, whether permitted development rights are likely to have been removed, whether flood risk or ecology will be in play, and whether the structure will take what you have in mind.
And we are straight about it at the time. If something looks difficult, you will hear that on the day, not in a report three weeks later.
What you leave with
A view on feasibility. An indication of the planning route — permitted development, a lawful development certificate, a full application, listed building consent, or a combination. A sense of the sequence and where the risks sit. And indicative timelines, including the honest one about planning: for smaller applications approval may take eight to ten weeks, for larger applications thirteen to fifteen weeks, and it is sometimes delayed. That period starts when the authority validates the application, not when it is submitted.
You will also leave knowing what the next spend would be and roughly what it buys.
Whether we will tell you not to proceed
Yes, when that is the answer.
Sometimes the constraints make a project unviable. Sometimes the budget and the ambition are too far apart to close. Sometimes the right advice is to move rather than extend, or to do a smaller thing well rather than a larger thing badly, or to wait. Occasionally the honest answer is that the project does not need what we do and a technologist or a good local builder would serve you better.
We would rather say that in a free meeting than discover it at Stage 3, and it is the reason the meeting is free.
What happens after
If you want to go ahead, the next step is a detailed quote for architectural services. That is issued at Stage 1, once we have seen the property and agreed the scope, and it is priced as a fixed fee for each RIBA stage rather than as a single figure for the whole project.
Two things follow from that. You know the price of the work in front of you before it starts. And you can stop at the end of any stage — after concept design, or with planning consent in hand — without renegotiating anything. Many clients do exactly that.
Our fee guidance explains what drives the fee and, importantly, which project costs sit outside an architect's fee altogether — the planning application fee you pay directly to the authority, surveys, engineers, specialist reports, a quantity surveyor and building control among them. Where a site is complicated enough to need more work before a design begins, a feasibility study is usually the right next step.
Where we meet
On site is best, and for most Norfolk and Suffolk projects that is what we do — Norwich, South Norfolk, Broadland, North Norfolk, the Broads parishes, Lowestoft and Ipswich. Our head office is in Norwich. For projects further afield, including work run from our Beirut studio, the first conversation can happen remotely.
You can see the kind of work these conversations lead to across our portfolio, from a family house extended to the rear at Cringleford through to conversions, new builds and commercial projects.
Book it
Call +44 (0) 1508 830 310, email info@archidite.com, or book a free initial consultation. Tell us the address and roughly what you are thinking, and we will take it from there.