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D e s i g n S e r v i c e s
Excellent design meets your needs, but also blends with the environment, rural or urban,
and sits lightly on the earth. At Ecotecture®: Design, we take time to listen to your needs
and ideas, and we take your construction budget seriously. Our designs are down-to-earth
in every way--ergonomic, seamless with the existing architecture and the environment,
practical and beautiful.
We provide a service to help you with every phase of the design and construction process.
*Learn more about a typical project's phases in our Planning Your Project section.
FEASIBILITY CONSULTATION
We begin all of our projects with a Feasibility Consultation that lets you know whether
your dreams can be realized, and what it will take to do so. The purpose of the consultation
is not to sell you on our design services, or anyone else's, but to give you an objective
opinion about the feasibility of your proposed project.
The Feasibility Consultation is held at your home for addition projects or your building
site for new homes. It takes two to three hours.
Five aspects of feasibility are considered: The project's architecture, structural and
technical problems, legal issues (zoning), financial matters and emotional concerns such as
stress factors and the motivation for building. Your budget and current San Francisco
Bay Area construction costs are discussed. Preliminary sketches are often made, and
alternative designs are proposed when appropriate. To pass the feasibility test--and
qualify to enter the preliminary design phase--the project must look as if will work on all
levels.
All of our Feasibility Consultations are conducted by Ecotecture® Design's Principal and
author of Adding To A House Philip S. Wenz. His thirty years of experience in design and
construction, twenty years of teaching construction technology and architecture,
one thousand real estate inspections and numerous feasibility consultations
uniquely qualify Mr. Wenz to help you determine whether your project will
work.
Feasibility Consultations cost $350 for San Francisco Bay Area Locations within 25 miles
of El Cerrito (just north of Berkeley). An hourly transportation surcharge is added for
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COMPLETE DESIGN SERVICE
The four basic steps in the design process, Program Determination, Preliminary Design,
Design Development and Construction Drawing Production are described in the Planning Your
Addition section of this web site. The Ecotecture® design service covers every
step from putting your ideas on paper as rough sketches to providing the technical
drawings you need to get your permit and build your dream home and addition.
As designers, we believe our first job is listening to you, finding out what you want, then
building your dream your way, not ours. You can expect to be intimately involved in the
design of your space from the beginning to the end of the process.
Architectural fees generally run 10 to 15% of a project's construction cost. At
Ecotecture Design, we do all our design work in house, but job out much of the grunt work
such as drafting, engineering and energy reports. That allows us to provide you with a
first rate design while keeping our overhead down and passing the savings on to you. Our
fees then, tend to run in the lower end of the professional spectrum.
Our designs are done on bid basis, not by the hour. We give you a top and bottom price for
your plans, with a generous allowance for consultations about your design. Our simple,
readily understood contract consists of about three typed pages that describes what we will
do for you and what you will pay us in return. back to top
PERMIT APPLICATION ASSISTANCE AND FOLLOW UP
When your plans are ready to go to City Hall, we don't just hand them to you. As a regular
part of our Complete Design Service, we accompany you to the Building Department and help
you submit the proper documents and answer the questions about contracting liabilities,
fees and so on. Then, we stay on top of Building Department to minimize
delays in the issuance of your permit.
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CONTRACTOR INTERVIEWS
Included in our Complete Design Service are up to three contractor interviews conducted at
your home by our Principal Philip S. Wenz. At these interviews, Mr. Wenz goes through the
Construction Plan Set with the prospective contractor to make sure that project is
understood. At the same time, he gets a sense of the contractor's capabilities and fit
for the project. We also help you compare contractor's bids.
CONSTRUCTION SUPERVISION AND TROUBLE SHOOTING
Construction Supervision may not always be necessary (see Planning Your Addition). When
supervision is needed, it is provided and billed on an hourly basis, separately from the
design fees.
MISCELLANEOUS CONSTRUCTION CONSULTING
Along with the Complete Design Services, Ecotecture® Principal Philip S. Wenz is
available for miscellaneous construction consulting including:
evaluation of ongoing work
expert witnessing
informal mediation between contractors and clients
real estate inspections.
Mr. Wenz has had extensive experience in all of these areas.
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