Leicester’s historic Market Place is being reimagined as a vibrant, inclusive hub—restoring its role as a centre for trade, culture, and community life while enhancing the visitor experience for a modern city centre.
Find out more in this BBC article – https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-66962218
Hickman and Smith Architects have worked on a wealth of beautiful listed and historic buildings and on many projects within conservation areas. Three of the architects in the practice are conservation registrants. We love to work with old buildings and can help clients to celebrate and preserve the historic features of their buildings. Having a heritage property comes with constraints on what you can change and do, we are experienced in navigating listed building planning consents and working with heritage properties to achieve your goals and make the most of the fantastic opportunities that come with a heritage project.
As well as helping with the tendering process to ensure the right contractor for the job is appointed, Hickman and Smith can provide contract administration services throughout the construction stage.
The contract administrator helps to assist the smooth running and proper management of the project; aiding communications and expectations between the client and contractor and undertaking regular site visits and valuations.
We have experience acting as contract administrators on a range of projects and contract types. We can bring our design and construction experience to the project, helping to meet your expectations down to the smallest detail.
Cost can be affected by so many different factors and the markets are regularly fluctuating. Understanding your programme constraints, project requirements and desires, and the budget available is essential for delivering feasible projects to our clients.
We can explore the options and possibilities with your project and collaborate closely with quantity surveys and contractors to advise on costs.
We are passionate about including sustainable features and technologies in our designs. Not only to help the environment but often to improve the costs and lifestyles of our clients. We have projects with green roofs, solar panels, composting toilets, rainwater harvesting, heat pumps and much more. We would be happy to discuss which sustainable features would be suited to your project.
Using the latest technology, we can create 3D images and VR visuals so that you can really understand what your spaces will feel like. These VR and 3D experiences are fantastic for enabling you to see every element of your project with photo-realistic quality.
You can look around and walk through the building as if you are there. This is not only great for you to see the spaces but can also be used as a powerful tool for promoting and marketing your projects where required.
Our team can produce high-quality quality realistic rendered images revealing multiple possibilities when certain aspects are difficult to visualise. We can showcase what your project will look like both internally and externally. These images are effective in helping you and others understand the final product, and to see the quality of the design.
As well as helping you get excited about what your project will look like, these images can also be used to promote and market your schemes and support the planning application.
Feasibility studies are a great option when you are not sure of the best approach for your building or land. We can explore a range of high-level options to help inform your decisions and decide on the best option for you.
Working closely with you to establish your goals and preferences for the project as well as considering any specific requirements or constraints on the project we can help and advise on the best options available to you.
We will take into consideration the planning and other statutory requirements that will be required for each option. If required, we often collaborate with quantity surveyors and agents to help give high-level cost indications for both build and sale of letting prices.
During the design stage, we will show you a number of different options and ideas to help you achieve your ideal design. Once we have worked with you to fix the design you want, we can prepare the drawings, visuals, and information required for a planning application.
We have worked in a range of local authorities and can help to navigate the requirements of the different local plans and statutory requirements. We will act as the agent to manage the application and liaise with the local authority to make the process run as smoothly as possible.
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