Question 1

What does design build actually mean here?

Accepted Answer

Architecture and construction sit inside one practice and one contract. The same office produces the drawings, the estimate, the schedule and the built work. There is no handoff to an outside general contractor at permit, which is the point in a conventional design bid build sequence where the price most often changes and where responsibility becomes contested. In practical terms: the estimators price the set while it is being drawn, so design decisions carry a cost at the moment they are made rather than at tender; the superintendent who runs the site has read the details from schematic onward; and a change discovered in the field is resolved by the people who authored the detail, usually within days, rather than through a request for information, an architect's supplemental instruction and a change order.

Question 2

What are the stages of a project?

Accepted Answer

Six. First conversation, where the site, the stage and the intended budget are tested against each other. Site read and feasibility, covering survey, soils, septic or sewer, zoning, party wall conditions and tree protection, closing with a written read and a first construction budget range the in house estimators stand behind. Design from schematic through detail, priced as it is drawn. Approvals, covering zoning board, landmarks where applicable, building department and utility coordination, with the practice carrying the file and attending hearings. Construction, run by the practice's own superintendent, carpenters and trades. Handover and the first year, closing with the certificate of occupancy, a usable closeout set, and a return visit after the first winter to check heat, moisture and door behaviour as the house settles.

Question 3

What does a project cost?

Accepted Answer

Construction budgets, not design fees, run from 350,000 to 1,200,000 US dollars for a whole house rework or a ground up custom home, and from 3,000,000 US dollars upward for larger ground up work and full gut luxury projects. The design fee is a percentage of construction cost, set out in writing before any line is drawn. Where a budget sits below the first range the practice will say so in the first conversation and suggest a better suited kind of practice rather than accept the project.

Question 4

Where does the practice work, and what does it not take on?

Accepted Answer

The Hudson Valley and Manhattan. Work is ground up houses, whole house reworks and substantial additions, taken on in small numbers at once by deliberate choice. The practice is not suited to projects that need to break ground next month, or to clients seeking the cheapest route to a finished house. Drawing takes time, and that trade is stated at the outset rather than discovered in month four.

Question 5

How is the first contact handled?

Accepted Answer

Three questions and an email address: what you have, where you are in the process, and when you would like to be living in it. The enquiry reaches one inbox inside the practice and is read by someone able to answer it, usually within the same week. No phone number is required and no sales sequence follows.

We draw the house, then we build it.

Site

Massing

Drawing

Built

The promise, in four numbers

What it costs, before you have to ask.

One house, shown properly.

Eleven people, one table.

Start a project conversation.