For architects
A builder who builds what you drew.
Architects, engineers, designers and builders have different skills, and they have to work together to get the best result. Here is exactly what you get from this half of that arrangement.
- 01
We build what you drew
Every quote is priced against exactly the materials you specified. If we think there is a cheaper way to get the same result, you hear about it and you decide — it never turns up as a substitution nobody approved. Ask any builder you are considering whether they will put that in writing.
- 02
A price before the DA, so your drawings do not get blamed
The most common problem we see is a client who lodges before anyone has costed the design. The approval comes back, the job gets priced, and suddenly your plans are the reason they cannot afford to build. Then they pay you again to redraw it. Bring us in early and that conversation happens while it is still cheap — and it happens about the budget, not about you.
- 03
We know what goes into the look
Architects want to work with materials and effects that clients are asking for. Making them work means knowing exactly what goes into creating them, and how different materials behave against each other. Reverse concrete stairs, curved glazing, free-spanning roofs, sandstone restored to its original jointing — we have built all of it.
- 04
We solve the site, not your design
Tight access, boundary-to-boundary, no rear lane, a neighbour who needs managing. Our answer to a difficult site is a staging plan, not a redesign — pool in first because access closes later, bridging platforms over the neighbours’ roofs to reach the render, a garage with bifolds so materials can still get in after the house is finished.
- 05
Your client can see the money, so you are not in the argument
Every job has its own set of accounts, its own bank account and its own credit card, and the client is welcome to see what was spent and on what. Any project over a month gets a written monthly report. When a client can see where their money went, nobody comes looking for someone to blame.
- 06
We handle the client and the trades
There is always someone on site running it, and on larger jobs a full-time labourer whose whole role is keeping it tidy. Some clients want to be consulted at every stage, some want to be left alone. Either way it is our conversation to manage, not yours — and your detailing survives contact with the trades.
No substitutions you did not approve.
We are happy to suggest ways to bring a build back to budget. But every one of them comes to you first, in writing, before anything is ordered — so what gets built is what you specified, and your client never finds out otherwise on handover day.
Eight questions to ask every builder.
Two quotes for the same house can differ by hundreds of thousands and still both be honest — they are usually not quoting the same thing. This is the checklist that makes them comparable, with tick boxes for three builders.
We answer yes to all eight, which is why we wrote it down. Ask them of everyone, including us.
Whose drawings we have worked from
David Boyle Architect
Mansfield Street, Rozelle — a three-storey house on a subdivided garden, built boundary to boundary with a free-spanning roof.
See the jobMKD Architects
176 Annandale Street — a dilapidated two-bedroom cottage taken to a five-bedroom home with a spiral stair tower and a separate studio.
See the jobSend us a set of drawings and we will tell you what it costs to build.
Before the DA if you can. It is a twenty-minute conversation, there is no fee for it, and you will get an honest number rather than a comfortable one.
