Luxury Design & Build
What a full design and build commission covers, what it costs you in time, and where it goes wrong.
In this guide
36 min · 5 articles
/8 min
Designing for Multi-Generational Living
Three moves cover most of what multi-generational living actually requires: a ground-floor bedroom with its own bathroom, a lift, and a second living room that is genuinely separate rather than an alcove. Everything else is refinement. All three are structural, so they are decided at concept stage or not at all.
/7 min
Passive Cooling in a Tropical House
Orientation, shading and cross-ventilation are free, permanent and decided in the first month. Everything bolted on afterwards is none of those things. Getting the envelope right will do more for comfort and running cost than any system you can buy.
/5 min
The Defect Liability Period, and Why It Is Included
The defect liability period runs after handover and covers the faults that only appear once a house is lived in. At KAPA it is included in the contract and cannot be bought separately, because a house that fails in year two is our problem as much as yours.
/8 min
Design and Build or Traditional Tender?
The choice is presented as a cost question and is really a question of control and risk. A traditional tender gives you more say and more exposure: you referee between a designer and a builder. Design and build gives you one accountable party and an overlapping programme. Either works with a well-defined brief; neither works without one.
/8 min
What Actually Makes a Home Luxurious?
Not the budget, but where it went. A luxurious home has generous volume and proportion, light from more than one direction, quiet, a few materials detailed carefully, things that simply work, and a real connection to the outside. Above all it is built around how the people in it actually live — luxury is personal.
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