Frequently Asked Questions

Answers to Common Architecture, Planning & Construction Questions

At Lime, we provide a complete architectural and project management service — from property finding and feasibility studies to planning applications, cost plans, skilled trades and ongoing maintenance. This FAQ page answers common questions about design timelines, planning regulations, construction costs and how we deliver projects up to 40% faster.

Q. How quickly can we get to site with Lime in comparison to working with an architect only?

We can get you to site 40% quicker. Here’s how.

This will vary of course depending on project scope etc. but you can consider the following as a typical programme for design development with an architect.

• Brief Appraisal, concept designs and feasibility – 1-2months
• Refined design for Planning Permission submission – 1-2months
• Pre-application Advice (if deemed necessary) 1-2months
• Planning Determination and Approval – min 2months, likely more
• Technical detailed design development to tender submission – 2-3months
• Tender returns period and negotiations – 2-3months
• Site mobilisation – 1month

Total to get to site: 10-15months (this is assuming no delays and best-case scenario throughout)

At Lime, we can offer you the following – an approach that gets you on site 40% quicker by mobilising immediately after submission to the planners, using the time they are determining their approval to provide a confirmed contract cost and the relevant design information:

• Brief Appraisal, concept designs and feasibility + cost – 1-2months
• Refined design for Planning Permission submission + maximum cost – 1-2months
• Pre-application Advice (if deemed necessary) 1-2months
• Confirmed cost + Site mobilisation – 3months
• Planning Determination and Approval – min 2months, likely more
• Technical detailed design development ̶t̶o̶ ̶t̶e̶n̶d̶e̶r̶ ̶s̶u̶b̶m̶i̶s̶s̶i̶o̶n̶
• T̶e̶n̶d̶e̶r̶ ̶r̶e̶t̶u̶r̶n̶s̶ ̶p̶e̶r̶i̶o̶d̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶n̶e̶g̶o̶t̶i̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶s̶ ̶–̶ ̶2̶-̶3̶m̶o̶n̶t̶h̶s̶
• S̶i̶t̶e̶ ̶m̶o̶b̶i̶l̶i̶s̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶–̶ ̶1̶m̶o̶n̶t̶h̶

Total to get to site: 6-9months (this is assuming no delays and best-case scenario throughout)

Q. What about competitive tender – how do I know I am getting the best price for construction?

The traditional (JCT contract) approach to procurement results in you signing away against a ‘fixed fee’ with a contractor of your choice at the outset of your build. Bear in mind that the contractor will have priced very keenly to begin with in order to be competitive during the tender process. What normally happens therefore is that your ‘fixed fee’ goes up during the course of the works. This happens because the contractor has included ‘Provisional Sums’ in the contract for any items they can’t be sure of prior to getting on site –due to a lack of information provided in the design, or because they aren’t suitably educated on the property/site that the project is for. Any changes to the design required as a result is than applied for in the contract under a ‘Variation’ of cost once it is determined what the approach needs to be. Once on site you have very little opportunity to control the costs – even if you have a contract administrator during the works. Your architect then has to produce the information required by the contractor, which in itself is an additional cost, and you also have additional costs in terms of materials and labour that weren’t factored in at the outset. 

The process of competitive tender is a zero sum game for contractors – price too high you risk not getting the work, price too low you risk either delivering a substandard product, or worse going bust in the process of delivery. It pits the client against the contractor from the outset and what ensues is a tug of war throughout. This is not conducive to founding a good working relationship, or delivering the high quality product the client is expecting, on time and on budget.

At Lime we start on the basis that we have already given you a worst case scenario maximum cost, that we will 100% stick to as the uppermost cost you will pay for the construction. We then enter contract with you, having defined the detail, with what we consider will be a realistic construction cost for the contract – this will be lower than the maximum previously confirmed, as we will have confirmed with you all the detail we didn’t have previously. We believe that if we have done our homework right in the previous stages of design, and into this one, we can offer you this cost certainty earlier on in your project. We also then offer an open-book approach to construction. This means we are open and transparent with you about the costs for the site works as we proceed, and you have full sight of and control of costs as we go. We will also only produce the details we know we will need, reducing the amount of information normally produced by an architect on their best assumptions of what will be needed, and we also ensure that the details we do produce are relevant to your project, feasible and cost effective, reducing the need to revise these once on site.

Our approach is informed, integrated and collaborative from the outset. We are driven to deliver you exactly what you have signed up for – and more, exceeding your expectations.

The benefits of our approach for you are that if the construction costs do go over the maximum cost we have provided you with at planning stage – we will take on the liability for this. We remove all the risk and uncertainties you would normally face in a traditional approach, to ensure that you get the design you approved at planning, at a cost that has a maximum limit set against it. Thereby it is impossible for the contract cost to run away into uncharted and uncomfortable territory.

In fact, we know that we can deliver your construction at a cost of up to 20% less than the traditional route. How do we know this? Because we have been delivering projects via the traditional route for decades, and we therefore know what the order of savings to you can be, both in terms of minimising variations to the design, minimising fees for revisions to the architectural information and the delays that both of these causes to site works – all the while ensuring the highest quality finish you expect.

Q. What’s so different about Lime compared to an architecture practice?

Lime integrates the full range of consultant expertise required for the construction phase of a project right from the beginning. This allows us to streamline the process of developing architectural design by integrating construction expertise and cost analysis into each stage of development.

The traditional route with an architect normally only allows you to receive a confirmed cost for the construction right before you want to mobilise onto site works. The outcome of this approach is that you will have gone through all the design development up to this point without a clear idea of cost – and what happens more often than not is that when you do receive confirmation of the construction cost at this late stage in the process, it dawns on you that the designs you have developed are well above your desired budget. You are then faced with having to redesign and value engineer to meet your budget. This is incredibly inefficient and fundamentally frustrating as a client.

By integrating our construction expertise from the beginning, we are able to continually evaluate the implied construction cost with you as we progress through the design development process. This also means that by the time you have submitted your designs to the planners for permission to undertake the works, not only do we provide you with a worst case scenario maximum cost against the designs, but it also means that we can move swiftly through the next stage of technical detailed construction level information production far more efficiently – only producing the information and details we know we will need, and doing so with certainty that these details can be built in the most cost-effective way and won’t require endless revisions once we begin works on site. So, we can mobilise to site much more quickly and efficiently, reducing the time required significantly and cutting design production costs substantially too. This can mean saving several months in the overall project programme, and avoids delays once on site too. 

Onsite 40% quicker, and resultant construction cost savings of up to 20% when compared to the traditional route.

Q. I’ve started my project with another architect, but I’d like to explore the Lime approach – can I?

In short, yes! 

We prefer to work with clients from the outset of their project, as this is how we can guarantee the savings in time and cost that are our USP. However, we are here to help you no matter what stage your project is at, even if you have been working with another architect.

We will carefully appraise your project to discuss with you the merits of moving this over to us. If you are still at the early stages of concept design development now is a great opportunity for you to speak with us as you likely can still benefit from the savings we can bring to your project. If you have already achieved planning permission with a design, this may mean a more disruptive intervention in the process of your project, but we will be clear and honest about that and if it doesn’t look like there is a benefit for you bringing your project online with us we will tell you this. We will always work in your best interests, even if that means your project staying with another architect.

Q. I own a listed building, what are my options?

Lime Director of Architecture Jim is an accredited RIBA Conservation Architect with extensive experience of working with historic and grade listed buildings. 

Grade listed buildings are considered heritage assets of national significance. This means that there are constraints when making changes to them compared to non grade listed buildings. However, this doesn’t mean that change can’t happen. It simply means that any proposed change must be sensitively justified to the local authority conservation officer (CO), and for Grade II* and Grade I listed buildings, to Historic England as well.

Justification for change can be argued in many ways, but this always needs to be shown to be providing a benefit to the heritage asset. Listed buildings do often bear similar inappropriate or ‘harmful’ interventions that non listed buildings do – the result of historic changes made to them, many dating from before the property was denominated as being of historical significance. These ‘harmful’ interventions commonly erode and/or prevent the building from being used in the way it was originally intended – and often in the way they are best suited to be used moving forward. Removing some or all of this harmful intervention customarily forms the central justification against any other further changes to be implemented. 

It is striking how often simply bringing back the original historic form to listed buildings unlocks exactly the desired outcome for taking these buildings forward in a meaningful way. There is an emphasis on retaining the buildings in use for future generations, thereby some contemporary additions can be justified in this endeavour. Historic England have also provided their guidance for upgrading listed buildings’ thermal performance, in light of the climate emergency and energy cost crisis. Therefore, there is a lot of scope for making improvements to listed buildings, and it is important that these are not treated as museum pieces crystalised in an historic moment in time. To remain relevant and ensure their retention, listed buildings do need to be fit for purpose. The approach to achieving this does require more thought and care but it is perhaps not as restrictive as you may think.

What is a grade listed building, and what does the listing mean?

Grade listing was introduced in the 1940s through the Town and Country Planning Acts of 1944 and 1947, which enabled the government to statutorily protect buildings of special architectural or historic interest. The legislation determined which buildings should be saved or rebuilt after potential damage during World War II, leading to the creation of the national list of buildings in 1947. 

More buildings are added to the list by Historic England every year, often further to local or national petition. The vast majority of listed buildings, 92%, are listed Grade II. Grade II* buildings make up a further 5-6%, meaning that Grade I listed buildings are very rare indeed, only 2-3% of the overall number.

It is quite common for residential properties to be listed Grade II therefore, much less likely to find examples listed Grade II* or Grade I – although these do exist.

A common misconception is that Grade II buildings require a less onerous and/or sensitive approach than Grade II* or Grade I. Another is that for Grade II listed buildings only the outer fabric to the building is listed. Another still is that only what has been included in the Historic England listing description is listed. None of this is true. Historic England require that all listed buildings, whatever their denomination, are treated with the same sensitivity and care. And it is important to note that when a building is listed, this means that the entire building, including all its interiors – historic or modern – are considered as forming part of its listing and significance. This needs to be carefully considered and understood, as it is a criminal offence to make changes to listed buildings without Listed Building Consent.

Change to listed buildings

Having worked with listed buildings across all denominations Jim has a sound understanding of the principles that need to be applied when considering making contemporary interventions to them. Jim is well versed in helping clients unlock the full potential of their listed building, and indeed, where appropriate, proposing modern changes and extension to these with robust justification.

Options when working with a listed building require a more thoughtful and sensitive approach and also require the input of an appropriate architect with conservation architecture expertise, but the message is that you can bring about change. 

It is helpful to start from a position of ‘how can I change the way I use the building to compliment its historic significance?’, rather than ‘how can I change the building to compliment the way I want to use it?’. It’s a balancing act, but if this approach is taken, surprisingly positive results can happen.