House design to construction procedure. 3 steps.

The procedure from house design to construction is as below 3 steps.

1. Architectural design Outline proposal.

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At this stage, the size of the rooms are discussed on the costs, merits and demerits. The shape and style of the house is also looked into. There are various styles such as Islamic, African traditional, European, Modern etc.

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If the budget is huge, the rooms can be bigger and vice versa.

If the budget is huge, the house can have complicated shapes eg circular, curvilinear, etc since such shapes usually cost more in labour.

This stage usually takes a period of 1 week to 1 month to complete.

2. Architectural design. Scheme design.

After the house size , shape and style is determined, the drawings are set up in A1 sized paper with elevations, sections, floor plans, site plan and location plan for submission to the County Government department of planning.

This process on average takes around 1 month. The County planner will check the drawing to see if it confines to the County by laws and may recommend changes to enable it fit within the by-laws eg roof drainage away from neighbouring plot, house position at least 6 meters away from main access road , septic tank 1.5 meters away from neighbouring plot etc. etc..

3. Construction supervision.

After approval, the architect will then supervise the building to ensure that the contractor/foreman/fundi is following and understanding what has been designed in the process of construction. This is usualy periodic, in 2 to 4 week period interval of site visits. This process continues till completion of the house.

Francis Gichuhi Kamau, Architect.