2nd Architect Meeting

After our first meeting, Matej went away to work up a proposal, which he presented back to us at our next meeting.

At this stage we weren't sure whether we would chose to go with Matej or not - so the meeting was quite important. We were impressed that Matej had understood our brief and we liked the way he runs his studio.

Rather than have a limited number of changes - with charges for additional changes, Matej offered a fixed cost that would see the project through to completion. It included potentially unlimited changes and as many site visits as necessary. While we had a slightly cheaper quote from another architect, we liked Matej's approach to the project.

The proposal set out the following steps and indicative timelines:

• December 2020 – order placed
• Jan 2021 – preparatory works (LI, geodetic survey, snapshot of the existing situation, model, updating of starting points,…),
• Jan 2021 – April 2021 – conceptual design and obtaining project conditions,
• Mar 2021 – May 2021– obtaining opinions (Elektro Ljubljana, municipality,...),
• May 2021 – DGD – filling the application for building permit,
• May – Aug 2021 – coordination with the Administrative Unit (UE) and the preparation of the PZI - falls exactly into the holidays season, so this period, based on past experience, has been extended by one month,
• Sept 2021 – PZI finalised, building permit (GD) obtained
• Aug - Sept 2021 – tenders; interviews with potential contractors and the selection of contractors
• Autumn / winter 2021 – earthworks and construction work (depending on weather conditions and occupancy of contractors),
• Spring / Summer 2022 – wooden construction assembling (depending on weather conditions and occupancy of contractors)
• Summer / Autumn 2022 – Finalisation,
• Winter 2022 – Moving in.

From discussions with Matej and friends, the riskiest part of the timeline is gaining the building permit (DGD). Although the municipality are supposed to make a decision within a couple of months - we've heard that it can take well over a year. The above plan allows 4-5 months for this process which could well be optimistic.

Costs

Our budget for the building project (excluding the land is €300.000). The architect's costs came in at €28.500 - 9.5% of the total budget. While this is a significant cost, we are happy with the decision as we are confidant that Matej and his team will design a beautiful house that we will enjoy living in for many years. Matej will also look after the budget and do his best to ensure that we can achieve the goals we have for the house with as few trade-offs as possible.

Choosing an Architect

We decided to go ahead with Matej because he has designed many beautiful houses that we feel we would love living in. We felt that he understood our aims in building our own house and that he shared many of our values. Here is his profile on Open House Slovenia.

At the end of the day, building your own house is an emotional journey - not just a calculated spreadsheet led decision. We connected with Matej and decided that we would trust him with what is likely to be the biggest financial investment of our lives.

Next Steps

We agreed to get back to Matej within a week (although we'd already decided to go ahead with him :-)).

The next steps after that were to arrange the geodetic survey of the land and for him to start work on the conceptual design.