Full Architectural Service in London

The RIBA Plan of Work organises a project into clear stages: strategic definition, preparation and briefing, concept design, spatial coordination, technical design, manufacturing and construction, and handover. A full service runs across all of them, so each stage is properly resolved before the next begins and one team holds the whole picture — the brief, the design, the approvals, the consultants and the build — rather than handing it off in fragments.

On constrained, high-value London projects, the cost of gaps between stages is high: a design that ignores planning reality, technical drawings that lose the design intent, or a build that drifts from what was approved and priced. A full service closes those gaps. We brief, design, secure approvals, produce coordinated technical information, run the tender, and support construction — including contract administration where we are appointed and insured for it.

A full service delivers something tangible at each RIBA stage. Feasibility and briefing establish what is wanted and what the property allows; concept design develops the idea into tested options; the planning stage secures permission; technical design produces the coordinated building regulations and construction information; and the construction stage takes the project through tender, the build and handover. Knowing what each stage produces — and that it is resolved before the next begins — is what makes a full service predictable rather than a leap of faith.

The quiet value of a full service is that one accountable team holds the whole project. We coordinate the structural engineer, the energy assessor, the surveyor and any specialists, so the consultants’ information lines up and you are not left mediating between advisers who have never spoken. Instead of managing a series of disconnected appointments, you have a single relationship and a single point of responsibility for how the parts fit together — which is exactly where complex London projects tend to succeed or unravel.

A full service does not have to mean an all-or-nothing commitment. Because the work follows the RIBA stages, the appointment can too: many clients engage us through planning and then decide on the construction stages once permission is secured, while others want us from first sketch to final handover. We agree the scope and the basis of our fee stage by stage, so the service fits the project and your appetite rather than forcing a single template onto every commission.

In plain terms: we help define the brief and test feasibility; develop concept options; prepare the planning or freeholder packages needed; produce technical design and building regulations information; run or support tender; and remain involved through construction for design integrity. Not every client needs every stage at full intensity — some stop after planning — but a full appointment keeps one design story from first sketch to handover.

Consultants (structure, energy, heritage, party wall) are coordinated against that single story so you are not managing a fragmented team alone.

If you only need to know whether an extension is realistic, start with a route review or feasibility. If permission already exists, start at technical design. Full service is best when you want continuity on a complex home project — multiple consents, heritage constraints, or a high specification — and value one accountable lead. We map the right entry stage to your actual question so fees match risk.

Fixed fees are agreed per stage in writing. See our packages page for published drawing-stage fees and ask for a whole-project fee plan once the brief is clear.

The risk on long residential projects is design drift: planning drawings say one thing, the tender another, and site decisions a third. Full service reduces that drift by keeping the same team responsible for coordination, specification clarity and responses to site conditions. It is not a guarantee of build cost or programme — those sit with the contractor and market conditions — but it is the structure that protects design intent when pressure rises on site.

We are transparent about what full service is not: continuous clerk-of-works supervision, cost guarantee, or planning outcome guarantee.

Planning permission is one approval among several, and the others keep their own timetables. A householder or minor application carries a statutory target of around eight weeks from validation, major applications around thirteen, but that period governs the planning decision alone. Building regulations are assessed under a separate regime against the Approved Documents covering structure, fire safety, ventilation, stairs and guarding, energy, overheating and electrical work, so a scheme can hold permission while its construction detail is still unresolved. Party wall notices run statutory periods of one or two months depending on which notice is served. Where a permission arrives with pre-commencement conditions, those must be cleared before work can lawfully start.

Holding those clocks in the right order is a large part of what a full service quietly does. Technical drawings are prepared so the building control submission and the approved scheme describe the same building rather than two versions of it. Party wall notices go out early enough that their periods run alongside tender instead of after it. And the conditions on a decision notice are read the week it lands, because discharging a pre-commencement condition on materials or drainage is a fresh application with its own wait, and the thing that moves is usually a start date somebody fixed in the diary months earlier.

Alongside the statutory consents sits a private layer with no statutory clock at all. A flat or maisonette has none of the permitted development rights a house enjoys, so alterations that would go unremarked in a terrace need an application. The lease usually governs anything structural, anything touching services or common parts, and often any change to the position of wet rooms, and the freeholder's consent takes the form of a licence to alter negotiated through their surveyor and solicitor. Estates and mansion blocks often add their own rules on materials, windows and working hours, and estate or freeholder consent can require its own drawings; the building's insurers may need telling too.

Because none of this runs to a published timetable, it is the layer most likely to strand an otherwise well-run project. We treat it as a stage in its own right rather than an afterthought: establishing early what the lease actually permits, preparing the licence to alter drawings a freeholder's surveyor needs to assess rather than the ones a planning officer wants, and running the two consents side by side so they are not queued end to end. Where works reach a party structure between flats, a floor or a separating wall, the notice obligations apply as they would between houses, and the neighbours above and below become part of the programme.