Custom Home Design

It depends on the size and complexity of the house and on how quickly decisions are made, but a full custom home commonly takes several months from first site study through permit-ready documents. Difficult topography, floodplain considerations or demanding review authorities add time, and we would rather tell you that at the start than discover it late.

Both produce drawings, but the roles differ. A drafter typically documents an idea that already exists. An architect brings design leadership — how spaces function, how the building meets code and zoning, how the site constrains the plan, and how the whole thing performs over time. For a small, repeatable scope, drafting support may be appropriate. For a custom home, a difficult site, or any project where design and permitting decisions overlap, an architect is the safer answer.

Often, yes. Plans are regularly adapted to a specific lot, brought up to current code, coordinated with engineering and developed into a permit-ready set. What matters is being honest early about whether adaptation or a fresh design is the better value, because heavily reworking a plan that fights your site can cost more than starting from the land.

Fees are commonly expressed as a percentage of construction cost or as a fixed fee for a defined scope. Industry ranges frequently fall somewhere around eight to fifteen percent for full-service work, varying with complexity and how much construction-phase involvement is included. Scope and fee are put in writing before design begins, so you are never guessing what is covered.

At minimum: the property or a property under serious consideration, a realistic budget range, and a sense of how you want to live. A survey and any deed or HOA documents help enormously. If you have not bought land yet, involving us before you do can prevent an expensive mistake — not every beautiful lot is an easy build.

Yes, and it is treated as an architectural question rather than an equipment question. Orientation, shading, glazing placement, envelope assemblies and moisture management are all decided in design. The studio holds fourteen industry credentials spanning design, sustainability and high-performance building science, and that thinking is applied by default rather than sold as an upgrade.

That is exactly what the construction document set is for. We prepare the package for submittal to the authority with jurisdiction over your property and respond to review comments through the approval process.

Design does not have to end at the permit counter. Many owners continue with construction administration so the studio stays involved while the house is built, and some add owner representation to manage bidding and contractor oversight. Both are described on their own pages.

Yes, and it is one of the most useful conversations available to you. Slope, drainage, floodplain status, soil, access, utilities, setbacks, deed restrictions and the controlling jurisdiction all affect what can be built and what it will cost. Two lots at the same price can carry very different site development costs, and that difference is far easier to discover before closing than after.

Schematic design answers what the house is: its size, arrangement, and relationship to the site. Construction documents answer how it gets built: dimensions, assemblies, details, schedules and the coordinated engineering a builder needs in order to price and construct it. They are the same house at two very different levels of resolution, and the middle stage, design development, is what carries it from one to the other.