A Dickensian Christmas

We thought they'd gone quiet, but Knott came out of the woodwork (sorry!) the other day threatening us with debt collectors.  So, debtors' prison for us over Yuletide, then...

This is our response:

Many thanks for your email of 19 December 2011 regarding the above invoice.

Firstly, you quote from my email of 24 November requesting soft copies of the plans before dealing with the corrected invoice.  My apologies for a badly drafted email written in haste [I'd written that we'd pay the corrected invoice rather than deal with the corrected invoice]; written in haste in part, I may add, due to having to respond within seven days to an invoice that had already spent some days in the post.  Obviously, not having been sent your contractual terms at any point we were unaware of your payment terms.  May I also add that even when the replacement invoice was sent by email it was dated some days previously.

Putting that aside, we still maintain that the correct, i.e. appropriate, payment of the invoice was a partial payment to reflect the fact that you have only partially completed the feasibility stage.  Without wishing to repeat the points in our letter to [Knott] of 1 December the reasons we believe you have yet to complete the feasibility stage are:

      i.        You have failed to meet the brief.  Setting aside the more subjective points in our response to your plans, given that the brief could be summed up as ‘make best use of space and light given the restrictions of the plot’, to present a design including key rooms with no natural light clearly shows that it objectively fails to meet the brief.  Another iteration of the plans was, therefore, we felt appropriate as part of the feasibility stage.

     ii.        When we met [Knott] on 14 October 2011 he agreed to discuss and clarify the council’s response to our pre-application ([Planning Officer's] letter of 10 October) and that any design presented would reflect those discussions.  At the presentation of the outline plan you confirmed that that conversation had not taken place.  If you had it is our belief that some of the most troubling aspects of the design could have been avoided.

We are disappointed that you maintain that you have completed this stage of the design satisfactorily.  We had hoped that you could take a step back and recognise that you had only partially met the brief and that, therefore, a partial payment of your fee is appropriate.  Unless we hear from you by 2 January 2012 that you are happy to draw a line under this we will look to raise this as a complaint/dispute with RIBA and/or the ARB, as appropriate.

Yours sincerely...

Fighting talk!

Not a very good site diary, is it?

Haven't thought of a decent pseudonym, so our new architectural designer will just have to stay as the Architectural Designer.  If things don't go as badly tits up as they have with Knott then he'll get his credit at the end.  If there ever is an end.

But, several days after it happened, have to report a decent meeting with him.  He didn't laugh when we showed him our pans and cardboard model.  He thought some degree of iteration of the plans until the client is happy was standard practice.  He's happy to QA and improve upon our basic design, and didn't try the 'you mere mortals couldn't possibly even attempt what we do' line.  He's even sent through written terms, which Knott never did.  All for £3,500, which would have been a couple of redrawings from Knott's minions.

The only slightly shaky moment was when he showed us his portfolio including something Georgian that "wasn't a pastiche".  The only conclusion that we can draw is that he has a time machine...

Doing what I shouldn't have to do any more...

Yes, back designing houses, drawing plans, even building another model, this time using wooden blocks to give it structure (which of my children's playthings can I steal to use next?).  All the things that I shouldn't have to do having employed an architect...

We have a meeting with the other architectural designer and, rather than give him a blank sheet we want him to QA, improve upon, and draw properly, our scheme.  He may, very professionally, talk us out of that route, or even walk away.  We're prepared to buy him a coffee, though, down the pub, if that helps secure his services.

Meanwhile, on the knotty Knott issue, here's our self-explanatory and, we hope, business-like letter to him, CAD files having arrived:

We are writing in relation to the above invoice, dated 25 November 2011, though only emailed on 28 November.  Having considered the outputs of our meeting of 16 November 2011 we feel it appropriate to only pay half of this invoice for the following reasons:

 I.        When we met on 14 October 2011 we clarified the deliverables of each stage.  Our understanding was that the output of the first stage of the process would be a design that would meet the client’s brief to the client’s satisfaction.  We therefore assumed that it would therefore allow for some appropriate degree of iteration.

We have already written expressing our disappointment at how the proposed design fails to meet our specification, in particular ‘making best use of light and space’ given virtually no glazing on the southern elevation.  Therefore we feel that for you to unilaterally decide that this phase has been completed satisfactorily is inappropriate.  As consultants in different fields it would be unheard of in our professions to sign off work without allowing clients to input into the deliverables of each stage.

 II.        Secondly, when we met on 14 October, you undertook to discuss the council’s response to our pre-application (XX’s letter of 10 October) and that the design you would present would reflect that discussion.  At the presentation XX confirmed that this had not been done.  If you had it is our belief that some of the most troubling aspects of the design, the ability to let natural light into the heart of the house in particular, could have been avoided.

Please find enclosed a cheque for £1827.

Yours sincerely,

Serendipity or coincidence?

Oddly enough, Knott hasn't responded to our email asking for a corrected added up invoice and the CAD files of our project.

In our search for an alternative strategy and provider (the idea of getting another RIBA square-glasses type up to speed only to be presented with an arty picture of a bog-roll holder makes me weep) we've contacted the architectural designer who did a bungalow remodelling in the same village which we drive past when we go to site.

Bizarrely, our surveyor, when I emailed to ask him not to pass anything further to Knott, recommended the same man, totally off his own bat.

Read all about our new relationship here...  Mills & Boon with a design and access statement...

Cheeky bastards... or just innumerate?

Invoice from Knott just turned up in the post - unbelievable client relationship management.

£2,900 for "Feasibility Outline Study", plus £145 expenses (they're in the same village!), sub-total £3,190 plus 20% VAT makes £3,828.

Do the maths - go on, do it...

Response to us

Thought you may like to see Knott's response (in bold) to the section I posted the other day:


Since we met earlier this week we’ve had some time to consider the design you presented. Although we said that we would dedicate some time to costings before responding substantively, we have come to the conclusion that the design as presented is ill-conceived and not heading in the right direction for us, and we therefore require rethought plans.


Our main concerns are two-fold. Firstly, we required the design to make “the best use of light and space”. Our primary reason for coming to you was that off-the-shelf providers did not seem to be able to cater for a long, narrow plot, orientated as it is. A key challenge, therefore, was how best to get light into the heart of the house.  However, you have presented a two-storey house with virtually no glazing in the south elevation, indeed less than the bungalow it is replacing. The south elevation is overlooking the neighbouring property so glazing options are severly restricted we have indicated high level slot windows where possible and additional rooflights could be incorporated as desired. 


We stated that we wished to build an energy efficient house – we do not believe this can be achieved most successfully with so few windows in the south aspect to allow for solar gain. Also, two rooms – the study and open plan landing - are utterly devoid of natural light. The new layout cater for this, please note that the brief did not specify the design/location of the study area and the initial scheme allowed for a glazed partitioned study space very similar in style to our own studio meeting room allowing for the sense of light and space. 


Most of all, we were surprised that you have kept the garage on the south side of the property. We could understand this if the rationale was to provide a long sloping roof into which rooflights could be placed providing light, but without overlooking neighbours (a strategy we would be happy with), but this clearly is not the thinking. The reasoning behind this was largely based on rooflines, bulk and massing as a response to the site context to respect the neighbouring property and thus be more likely acceptable in planning terms. The updated plan shows the plan ‘flipped’ horizontally however this does not really assist with light as the southern wall at ground floor will be in very close proximity to the boundary.


Overall, we feel the layout of the house as currently drawn would not meet our requirements and is a worsening, rather than improvement, from the draft floorplan we gave you as part of our briefing pack in July. This is a great disappointment. The draft floor plan was used as a guide in our designs, however since the time of the sketch planning feedback has overridden a number of the components you had allowed for- most critically the integral garage and window (and thus location) of bedroom 2. Our design had to take this into account and address your brief as closely as possible whilst keeping the planning comments and site restraints in mind.


Secondly, and perhaps the style of the drawing is to blame, but the design appears too similar to the 1970s brick-built houses common locally with an offset vertical stretch of tiles instead of your metal sheet. Unless you can provide an alternative means of presenting the design, this looks bland and boring and is not a design we would wish to invest in. We appreciate the Council may have a conservative approach to style and design of the new dwelling but two Council officers have verbally confirmed that a more contemporary design, if good quality, may be possible. We do wonder whether you have taken the overall context of XXXX Lane into account as the current design seems to just deliver a two-storey version, slightly updated, of the current bungalow. The contemporary perception of the scheme as built will rely on the high quality nature of the detailing- i.e. metal cladding, dark grey metal window frames, neat hidden guttering and sharp edged through-coloured render will in no way give the appearance of a ‘standard’ house. we appreciate that at this early stage it is difficult to full appreciate the drawings in this way. The are of course more ways in which we could be creative by way of oversized glazed openings etc however we have held back from this due to budget.


They also indicate that they regard the current phase of work as complete and now require paying.  Any further iterations will be charged and, just to introduce a sense of blackmail, they've produced a revised floorplan (worse than before in some ways, an improvement in others) but won't do elevations until they've seen a cheque.  And it seems clear that it'll take more than one iteration to get the plans where we want them...

We did try to clarify the deliverables at each phase of the project, but when we were told outline plans would be the deliverable here I must admit  assumed the words "to the clients' satisfaction" were taken as read.  As a consultant I'd never invoice until the client is happy, or at least until a reasonable number of iterations had been gone through.  Is this typical for architects?

Response to Knott

Here is the opening of our response to Knott, with the south elevation as proposed below.  Is it just us, or does it look like a prison?  Are we just being picky?

Since we met earlier this week we’ve had some time to consider the design you presented.  Although we said that we would dedicate some time to costings before responding substantively, we have come to the conclusion that the design as presented is ill-conceived and not heading in the right direction for us, and we therefore require rethought plans.  

Our main concerns are two-fold.  Firstly, we required the design to make “the best use of light and space”.  Our primary reason for coming to you was that off-the-shelf providers did not seem to be able to cater for a long, narrow plot, orientated as it is.  A key challenge, therefore, was how best to get light into the heart of the house.

However, you have presented a two-storey house with virtually no glazing in the south elevation, indeed less than the bungalow it is replacing. We stated that we wished to build an energy efficient house – we do not believe this can be achieved most successfully with so few windows in the south aspect to allow for solar gain.  Also, two rooms – the study and open plan landing - are utterly devoid of natural light.  Most of all, we were surprised that you have kept the garage on the south side of the property.  We could understand this if the rationale was to provide a long sloping roof into which rooflights could be placed providing light, but without overlooking neighbours (a strategy we would be happy with), but this clearly is not the thinking.

 
Overall, we feel the layout of the house as currently drawn would not meet our requirements and is a worsening, rather than improvement, from the draft floorplan we gave you as part of our briefing pack in July.  This is a great disappointment. 

Secondly, and perhaps the style of the drawing is to blame, but the design appears too similar to the 1970s brick-built houses common locally with an offset vertical stretch of tiles instead of your metal sheet.  Unless you can provide an alternative means of presenting the design, this looks bland and boring and is not a design we would wish to invest in.  We appreciate the Council may have a conservative approach to style and design of the new dwelling but two Council officers have verbally confirmed that a more contemporary design, if good quality, may be possible.  We do wonder whether you have taken the overall context of XXXXX Lane into account as the current design seems to just deliver a two storey version, slightly updated, of the current bungalow.

On a more positive note, despite initial reservations, we are happy with the concept of dropping the front third of the house to decrease the apparent massing when viewed from the road.

And then we went on with particular, specific issues, some of which did appear to be basic architectural howlers, like positioning the stairs so all the cold air from outside rushes straight to the upper floor when it could be simply reversed.  Then again, many Victorian houses have just the same fault and they invented just about everything and painted the world pink (hello to all our readers in the Empire).

We still think we've got the right architect (possibly because we don't want to start again?), but the next few weeks will prove us right or wrong...