Having weighed up the pros and cons over the past few months of employing an architect in a ‘full service’ capacity we’ve decided to go it alone.

It’s not been an easy decision and is at least in part driven by the fact that I’ve not managed to find anyone who is able to offer this type of service in the locality of the barn. That meant that travel expenses were likely to be a sizeable cost and time-on-site would be minimal.

These may well be famous last words, but I resent the potential cost and loss of control that a third party managing the project may mean.

So we’ve done away with the architect and gone green….

(or … will you employ an architect?)

We have some strong opinions about how we wanted the conversion to be.

We’re keen on a natural finish, wanting to avoid the dark stained timber, olde worlde kitchens & stairs and gravel often to be found in and around a stereo-typical barn conversion. Our aim is to blend traditional rustic design with modern design; the material and furnishings will reflect this blending.

So the question you need to answer is who fulfil the roles of design owner and design implementer? In other words who will derive the initial design (design owner), then carry it through to implementation in your completed building (design implementer)?

This is where an architect can come in – sharing these roles with the other stakeholders (the client, builders, planners etc.) as well as bringing experience and knowledge to your project. This will all come at a price (budget 15-20% of the total project cost). This is obviously a decision you need to make for yourselves, based upon, your aspirations skills, the clarity of your design vision and budget.

With strong ideas of our own and our inability to find a local full service architect, we chose to not employ a full service architect.