Our Services
We design new homes, extensions and refurbishments across Bristol and the South West, with particular experience in low-energy design and the conservation of historic buildings.
We can support your project from the first feasibility study through to completion, or help with a specific stage such as planning or technical design. Explore our services below, or get in touch to discuss what your project needs.
Planning Applications
We prepare and manage planning applications across Bristol and the South West, from home extensions to new homes on constrained sites. With over 15 years’ experience, we’ll advise on the best route for your project and guide you through the process. We start by reviewing your proposals and explaining what information the local planning authority is likely to need. If specialist reports or surveys are needed, we can recommend consultants we’ve worked with before and coordinate their input. We prepare clear plans, elevations and 3D visuals to show what you’re proposing and how it relates to its surroundings. Where needed, we also prepare a Design and Access Statement to explain the reasoning behind the design. Once the application is submitted, we liaise with the planning authority and respond to queries as it’s assessed.
We help you repair, adapt and improve historic buildings while retaining the features that give them their character. We can advise on what to keep, where changes could work and how to make these historic buildings more comfortable and energy efficient. We start by looking at how the building was built, how it has changed and which features are worth keeping. That helps us decide where a careful repair is enough, where removing a later alteration could reveal an original feature, and where new work can make the building easier to use. If you’re looking to make the building warmer, we consider which upgrades suit the existing walls, floors and roof. Where listed building consent is needed, we prepare the drawings and explain what would change, why it’s proposed and how it respects the building’s historic character. Explore our conservation projects to see how we’ve approached repairs and alterations to historic buildings.
We design homes that need very little energy to heat and are comfortable throughout the year. We use energy modelling from the early design stages to guide decisions about layout, windows, insulation and shading. We start with the site and how you want to live in the house. Where the rooms and windows sit affects how much sunlight the home receives in winter and how much shade it needs in summer. We use the Passive House Planning Package (PHPP) to estimate heating demand and assess overheating risk as the design develops. As we work through the construction details, we look at how to keep insulation continuous and prevent draughts where walls, roofs and windows meet. A ventilation system brings in fresh air while recovering warmth from the air leaving the house. Considering these decisions together helps us design for comfort while keeping heating needs low.
Read more about Passive House Topics
We help you decide which changes are worth making, whether you’re improving an existing building or planning a new one. Together, we set priorities for comfort, energy use and materials, based on what matters to you and what your budget allows. For an existing building, we start with a survey to understand how it’s built, where it may be losing heat and which improvements could make the most difference. We can help you weigh up options for insulation, windows and ventilation, and decide which work to do now and which could follow later. For a new building, we help you set goals early enough to shape the design. That might mean reducing how much energy the building needs, choosing natural materials or finding ways to reuse what’s already on site. Where useful, we use energy modelling (PHPP) to compare options before you commit to a design. Explore our eco building projects to see how these decisions have shaped our work.
Read more about Green Consultancy Topics
- Retrofit Feasibility - Energy Assessments - Grant Advice - Part L Calculations
Building Regulations
We develop your design into detailed construction drawings and specifications for building control review. These show how the project will be built and how it addresses the relevant building regulations. We specify how walls, floors and roofs are built and how they meet. The drawings cover details such as how insulation continues around openings, how rooms are ventilated and where drainage runs. We coordinate these details with the structural design and address fire safety requirements relevant to the project. We work with local authority and independent building control teams across Bristol, Bath, Somerset and Devon, responding to queries so the technical details can be resolved before work begins. Previous projects have been nominated for local authority building control awards.
