Blog

I hope you like my website and find it interesting and useful. I've included some links to organisations that are relevant to what I do and will add links to local consultants and contractors who I deal with as time goes by - on condition that they link to me of course! Please get in touch if I know you already and would like to link.


My practice 'Wight Architecture' has just moved into its new home at 46 Crocker Street Newport, formally the Christian Science Church. We had to obtain Planning Permission for Change of Use back to Residential Use as the building had not been lived in for 40 years.

The practice is now located in the former lending library and the building work is nearing completion on the rest of the house.  I hope this town centre location will be convenient for existing and potential clients who will always be welcome to pop in for a coffee.

We have just obtained Planning Permission for a new house in Cowes featured on my home page. Other current works include the conversion of a large semi-detached house in Ventnor into two flats, the conversion of a bungalow in Brighstone into a family home by the addition of a new roof, a similar project in Shanklin and a house extension in Whippingham to name a few.

I particularly enjoy designing houses, the extract below from the County Press reports on the award I won in 2007 for a new eco-home on the Island.

Having said that I am interested in tackling anything building related that you want to throw at me - I'll meet you on site and give you an appraisal for FREE!




 


How it Works:

On receiving your email or phone call I'll arrange to meet - usually on your site / home / land to discuss your project in more detail and get a picture of what you have in mind so that I can advise you on the costs and fees involved.

Depending on the size of the job we can either agree fees there and then and I will write to confirm asking you to sign and return an attached copy or for more complex projects where you may want to obtain several quotes I will write setting out my terms.

As a rule of thumb you can reckon on building work costing between £750 - £1000 per square meter for domestic projects and around £1500 per square meter for services commercial accommodation.

If you are thinking of building your own house, extending or altering your existing one a good read on anything financial to do with housing is The Housebuilder's Bible - by Mark Brinkley.

The most important thing to do is get the design right form the start, saving a few hundred pounds by not employing an architect will probably cost you a lot more in the long run.

Here are a few choice quotes about Architects:

GALLERY OF ARCHITECTURAL QUOTATIONS

When a building is as good as that one, f#*@ the art. (On Gehry's Bilbao Guggenheim as a place to experience art)

Philip Johnson

Architecture is the art of how to waste space.

Philip Johnson

Among the planets of the arts, architecture is the dark side of the moon.

Bruno Zevi

ar-chi-tect "är-ke-,tekt" n. One who believes that conception comes before erection.

Rob Daly

Home is where you hang your Architect.

Clare Booth Luce

Q: What would I do if I won a million dollars?
A: Probably just keep practicing architecture till it was gone.

The Management

We shape our buildings: thereafter they shape us.

Sir Winston Churchill

All architects want to live beyond their deaths.

Philip Johnson

Ah, to build, to build! That is the noblest art of all the arts. Painting and sculpture are but images, Are merely shadows cast by outward things On stone or canvas, having in themselves No separate existence. Architecture, Existing in itself, and not in seeming A something it is not, surpasses them As substance shadow.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Less is more.

Mies

Less is a bore.

Robert Venturi

Less is more work.

Patric McCue

In my experience, if you have to keep the lavatory door shut by extending your left leg, it’s modern architecture.

Nancy Banks-Smith

The physician can bury his mistakes, but the architect can only advise his clients to plant vines.

Frank Lloyd Wright

Architecture is "frozen music"… Really there is something in this; the tone of mind produced by architecture approaches the effect of music."

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

No one should drive a hard bargain with an artist.

Ludwig Van Beethoven

Architect. One who drafts a plan of your house, and plans a draft of your money.

Ambrose Bierce

You have to give this much to the Luftwaffe: when it knocked down our buildings it did not replace them with anything more offensive than rubble. We did that.

Charles, Prince of Wales

Commodity, firmness, delight...

Vitruvius

Believe me, that was a happy age, before the days of architects, before the days of builders.

Seneca