The Design Meetings

The next step, the actual design phase was by far the scariest of our lives.

We setup a meeting with BECA and their recommended architects DGSE.

I have to say, that I have nothing but good to say of our experiences with Nigel Dong and DGSE. We have had some hiccups, but I place no blame on Nigel and his team as they, much like us were following their instructions from Pico Leung and BECA.

They have been absolutely fantastic to deal with from the outset, even though like most people we meet he probably thinks we are very odd.... We had such definitive ideas, that are somewhat unique to our unusual lifestyle and it can be really difficult for people who work a general 9-5 job to understand. We have lived as we do for nearly 25 years, so we know that we are experts on our lifestyle and we absolutely know we are not average. Our needs aren't those of a normal family and there are a number of specific things that we need to make our lifestyle work for us that other people wouldn't even think of in their wildest dreams. To complicate the lifestyle too, having children in the house - particularly small boys adds another layer of complexity to our wants and needs. Juggling the way our work/home life balance teeters, with the need to keep our kids safe, is a tricky tightrope to walk and because we know our life and our children best, who is better than us to design our perfect space within our personal boundaries?

I felt for Nigel though, as he didn't have the easiest roads with our needs. We handed him a design, and we were pretty set on how it was laid out. Not very flexible and not very keen to see major changes. In fact, the first iteration of the plan, we sent it back because it was completely different to our vision. We have lived here for 15 years, so we understand innately the nature of the valley. Where the sun hits, how long it stays where, which areas are prone to wind and which are sheltered... even down to which direction the winds here frequent. Temperature, weather patterns, flooding risks, we know them. Plant life, what kinds of wildlife we have, traffic patterns, neighbours, we know them. I can even tell you which faultlines affect us and how much they affect us. We have learned that some of the Wellington faultlines we never ever feel quakes on, and others, we will always feel.

So although it took some work, DGSE made an apartment idea happen. The first version back was so far off that we couldn't even recognise it, so we gave them our plan again and the second iteration was far closer. It wasn't perfect, but it was workable. The layout had been altered, but they had made space for an internal stairwell which we hadn't originally planned - initially we had thought an external one would work but the internal was a good idea. So to fit that, they juggled a few of the rooms around, but without compromising on the feel of the main living space. And it looked like it was going to work.

We would have perhaps rather have kept our exact plan looking back, but Nigel seemed to have good ideas. And good reasons behind them. There were many aspects we hadn't covered off. So going to professionals was necessary and smart.

They had the knowledge and skills (as well as those pesky qualifications) to do the parts we couldn’t. As we were a little bit hands tied with moving from a draft design to an actual solid plan that a builder could build. We needed that specialised skillset that they could give.

Working with BECA wasn’t easy at any point but this particular part we thought was going well so far. We paid a under $150’000 for just the plans but we felt like it was money well spent as the attention to detail looked so good.

There was a lot in the plans that we didn't really understand, but given the amount of time we had spent explaining our needs to Pico, we expected all of the feedback and requests to have been passed on. And for the most part, the parts we didn't understand we made the crucial mistake of trusting that it was our inexperience in reading plans that was at fault, not the actual design.

At this stage of the project, everything was still going through BECA and Pico as Pico had instructed DGSE to put everything through him and not to contact us directly. As he had explained the same to us, that everything should go through Pico and we should not contact DGSE directly. In his words, it would cause complications if we began instructing the contractors and would be a problem.

We didn't want to cause issues, so we did as we were told.

Here are the iterations of the plans from our draft, through the architect ideas to our final plan;