Our approach
One clear lead, start to finish.
A full engagement covers the design of the house and the delivery of it: architecture, interiors, procurement and the running of the site, led through one appointment so you are not left managing a collection of separate teams.
How it runs
A residential project involves a lot of moving parts between the first conversation and the finished home. We organise that process into four clear phases that correspond to the RIBA Plan of Work.
Least costly to change Most costly to change
What are we doing, is it the right thing, and what does the building actually consist of. Requirements become a written brief. Surveys are commissioned. Constraints such as planning designations, listed status, covenants, drainage and trees are established before anyone draws anything.
You receive a brief, drawings of the building as it really is, and a programme.
The idea, tested against the budget. Form, layout, how the spaces relate, how light gets in, how the building meets the garden. Options are explored and narrowed, with early cost advice telling us whether the direction is affordable before it is developed.
You receive plans, sections and enough to understand the proposal properly, and you make the direction decision, which is the most important one and the least costly to change.
Making it work, getting consent, and specifying it completely enough to build. Structure is resolved with the engineer, services find routes, dimensions become real. Where permission is needed the application is prepared and submitted. Then the construction information: details, schedules, joinery, finishes, fittings.
You receive a complete set of construction information and a specification describing every material and product. This phase feels relentless because it is where the hundreds of small decisions get made, on paper, which is where they cost least.
Building it, handing it over, and living in it. Someone administers the contract: inspecting, valuing work for payment, issuing instructions, dealing with whatever is found when things are opened up. Then completion, handover and the defects period.
You receive the house, and a written record of every instruction, variation and valuation. Your job here is to decide as little as possible: changes made now are the expensive ones.
One clear lead throughout the project
A residential project involves many people, but the client should not have to become the person coordinating all of them. Lapunne holds the brief, design, information and delivery process together from the first decisions through to completion.
- Shaping a clear brief around how you want to live
- Testing the project against the property or site, budget and programme
- Establishing the consultants and specialist advice required
- Coordinating architecture, structure, services and interiors
- Managing planning and other approvals
- Preparing coordinated information for pricing and construction
- Guiding contractor selection and procurement
- Recording decisions and managing changes
- Administering the building contract
- Monitoring progress through construction
- Overseeing completion, defects and handover
You make the decisions that shape your home. We manage what it takes to deliver them.
We take on a limited number of projects because this level of continuity and attention requires it.
Designing a home
Residential architecture
Extensions, reconfiguration and new build. Drawings, structural coordination, planning and building regulations, resolved to the point a builder can price them properly. Materials, colour and furniture all matter, but they work with what the layout, movement and light have already established.
Interior design
Layout, light, materials, joinery and finishes, developed with the building rather than applied to it once the shell is done.
Extensions and renovations
Older houses in particular: what the building will tolerate, where the constraints really are, and how to work with them rather than against them.
Commercial
Less of what we do than houses, but we will take on a small office refurbishment or a CAT B fit-out where the same appointment and the same discipline apply.
Buying a home
Feasibility study
A short, contained piece of work at the start that tests the options against the actual building and the actual budget, and produces a recommendation rather than a design. It costs a small fraction of the project, and it occasionally concludes that the project should not happen, or not in the form imagined. This is paid work, and it is where most engagements begin.
Property design review
An architect's read of a house you are considering: what it can become, what it cannot, and what the difficult parts will be. Useful before you commit, and occasionally the reason not to.
Ready by Completion
Design, planning and procurement run alongside the legal process, so work can begin at or near handover rather than months after it.
Delivering a home
Procurement
Tender, comparison and appointment. Access to trade suppliers and makers who do not sell direct.
Project coordination
Contract administration, site inspections, valuations and instructions. The chasing is ours.
Furniture and installation
Specification, ordering, storage and the installation itself, so the house is finished rather than merely built.
What’s included
Worth stating plainly: the decisions that shape the house stay yours, and the several hundred that exist only to keep the project moving are ours.
| We lead and coordinate | You decide |
|---|---|
| Measured survey, existing drawings, site constraints | What the house needs to do for you |
| Feasibility, programme and the sequence of approvals | Whether to proceed, and on what basis |
| Concept and detailed design, drawn and coordinated | The direction, the one decision worth your full attention |
| Planning application, notices and negotiation with the authority | What is submitted, and how to respond if the authority pushes back |
| Structural engineer, building regulations, consultant appointments | Who is appointed and on what terms. They are your consultants, engaged on your budget |
| Specification of every material, fitting and finish | The handful you care about. We choose the rest and show you |
| Tender, comparison of prices, contractor appointment | Which contractor, from a shortlist we can defend |
| Site coordination, valuations, instructions, snagging | Payments, and any change to cost, scope or programme. We recommend, you authorise |
| Furniture, joinery and installation | What you want to live with |
Common questions
How long does a project take?
Longer than most people expect, and most of it happens before anything is built. Design and approvals are where the time goes, and compressing them is where projects go wrong. Rather than quote a figure that cannot mean anything before we have seen the house, we give you a written programme at the end of Discover, once the survey is done and we know what the building actually is.
Do you handle planning?
Yes: preparation, submission, the notices, and the correspondence with the authority. Determination is a statutory eight weeks for householder applications, and the outcome is never guaranteed. Where a proposal is finely balanced we will tell you before you spend money on it.
What if I am relocating to the UK?
Then the learning curve is the problem, not the design. We can act entirely on your behalf while you are elsewhere, arranging surveys, approvals, contractors and deliveries, and reducing the whole thing to a short conversation every fortnight. Several of the decisions that worry people most turn out not to need them at all.
What does project leadership actually mean?
Three things, done by one appointment. Leading: holding the brief, the budget and the programme together and bringing you the decisions that need you. Coordinating: appointing the engineer, the surveyors and the other specialists you need, and keeping their work aligned with each other and with the design. Administering: running the tender, administering the building contract, inspecting the work as it goes, valuing it for payment and issuing instructions. The specialists remain responsible for their own work. What one appointment removes is the gap between them.
Does interior design include furniture and styling?
Yes. Layouts, joinery, lighting, materials, furniture, fabrics, window treatments and styling are developed as one complete interior scheme, specified, sourced and coordinated through installation. Developing it alongside the architecture is what allows the finished home to feel coherent from room to room rather than assembled from separate decisions.
Can you start before completion?
Yes, and it is usually the best decision available. Survey, design, planning and procurement can all run alongside the legal process once an offer is accepted and access can be arranged. That is Ready by Completion.
How is the work costed?
An engagement begins with a feasibility study, which is paid work. Fees are agreed at feasibility, once scope is understood.
For clients who want the project led
Our clients are closely involved in the choices that define their home, but they do not want to become the project manager for a team of consultants, suppliers and contractors. They value thoughtful architecture and interiors, clear advice, an organised process and one person who understands the whole project.
Whether you are building a new home, transforming a property you already own or preparing a recently purchased house, the service is designed to remove unnecessary pressure without removing you from the decisions that matter.
Most of our work sits within an easy drive of the studio, across Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire: the villages around Woburn and Ampthill, the older houses of Berkhamsted and Knebworth.
- Thoughtful architecture and interiors
- Discreet, considered advice
- One principal point of contact
- Decisions presented clearly and at the right time
- Proper control of scope, cost and programme
- Continuity from the first conversation to the completed home
Tell us about the house.
The first conversation is the same whether you completed last week or are still deciding whether to offer.