Drawings are an abstraction. Sites are not. Every member of our team, from the principal to the youngest designer and our model makers, visits every site at least twice. It keeps the work honest and reminds everyone what the building is for.
Two visits, two kinds of attention
The first visit is for listening: the light, the noise, the neighbours, the trees worth keeping. The second is for testing: does the idea still make sense standing where it will be built?
We take sketchbooks rather than cameras on the first visit. Drawing forces you to look longer, and the things you choose to draw are usually the things that matter.
Standing on the site for an hour saves weeks of drawing the wrong thing.
What changes after a visit
Windows move to catch a view nobody had noticed on the survey
A tree that looked small in the plan turns out to be worth designing around
Neighbouring buildings shape where privacy is really needed
The client sees their future home at full scale for the first time
A habit worth keeping
Site visits take time, and on distant projects they cost money. We consider them part of the fee rather than an extra, because the alternative is more expensive: buildings designed for a place that only exists on paper.
It is a small habit, but it saves time, money and, most importantly, the character of the place.
