Practice · Nocton, Lincoln
Drawings that answer the questions a builder will actually ask.
Design, drawings and planning support for buildings and alterations in Lincolnshire and beyond.
The practice
Badoni Clark Ltd is an architectural practice working from Nocton, a village south of Lincoln. The work is design, the drawings that carry it, and the business of getting a proposal through planning and building control — which in practice occupies rather more of the year than the designing does, and is where a scheme is most often lost.
Projects arrive in three broad conditions. Somebody owns a building and wants more from it: an extension, a conversion, a reordering of rooms that were laid out for a way of living nobody has now. Somebody owns a site and wants to know what could be put on it, which is a question about policy and constraint before it is a question about architecture. Or somebody has been refused, and wants to understand whether the refusal can be answered or whether the scheme has to change.
All three start the same way: going to look. A survey of what is there, the levels, the boundaries, where the light comes from, what the neighbours can see, and what the local planning policy says about that particular plot. Drawing before that is drawing in the dark, and it produces the sort of scheme that collapses at the first proper question.
What comes out is a set of drawings at the level of detail the next stage requires — no more, because detail drawn before it has been decided is detail that gets drawn twice. Planning drawings say what the building looks like and how it sits. Construction drawings say how it goes together. The two are different documents for different readers, and confusing them is how contractors end up guessing on site.
The practice is deliberately small, and takes on the number of projects it can actually attend to. That is a limit, not a boast. It means a client speaks to the person doing the work, and it means we say no to things we could not do properly.
Services
The profession works in recognised stages, and a project can start or stop at any of them. These are the ones the practice offers.
| Stage | What happens |
|---|---|
| Appraisal | A look at the site or building and at what policy allows, before any design work. It answers whether the thing you have in mind is realistic, and it is the cheapest stage at which to find out that it is not. |
| Survey | Measuring what exists and drawing it accurately: plans, elevations, sections, levels and boundaries. Everything after this rests on it, so it is done properly, instead of being lifted from an old drawing that may not match the building. |
| Concept design | Options explored and tested against the brief, the budget and the constraints. Usually more than one, because seeing an alternative is what makes a client certain about their preference. |
| Planning application | The chosen design worked up into a submission: drawings, the forms, and a design statement setting out why the proposal is appropriate here. The application is submitted and the correspondence with the case officer is handled. |
| Building regulations | A separate approval from planning and often confused with it. Construction is drawn and specified so that it satisfies the regulations covering structure, fire, insulation, ventilation and access. |
| Tender information | Drawings and specification assembled into a package builders can price on a like-for-like basis, so that the quotations you receive can honestly be compared with one another. |
| Support during the works | Answering queries from site, checking that what is being built is what was drawn, and resolving the things that only reveal themselves once the building is open. |
Working with us
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First conversation
You describe what you own and what you want from it. We say whether it is something the practice can help with, and what the likely obstacles are.
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Written proposal
Before any work starts, a written note of which stages are included, what each produces, and how fees are calculated. Nothing proceeds on a handshake.
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Survey and appraisal
We come and measure, and read the policy that applies to your plot. You get the honest version of what is achievable.
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Design, reviewed with you
Options drawn and talked through. Changes are expected at this stage and cost nothing but time; changes after submission cost considerably more.
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Submission and decision
The application goes in and we deal with the authority. You are told what has been asked and what we have answered, at each turn of the correspondence.
Getting in touch
Write to the practice describing the building or site, what you would like to do, and where things stand. Photographs and any existing drawings or a planning reference help considerably.
The practice address
Badoni Clark LtdEmbsay Holt, Main Street
Nocton
Lincoln
LN4 2BH
United Kingdom