Assessing the "potential house site"

A few months earlier, before Viktoria and the Android departed the site following their ill-equipped camping trip, we purchased a bundle of stakes, spray-painted them a lovely shade of fluorescent pink, and hammered them into the ground in a rough amoeboid shape demarking the "potential house site" (as it was now known).

Deliriously giving Jackson Pollock a run for his money, we called our installation Pink Poles and toasted the site with a cup of billy tea. The fluoro pink stood out beautifully amongst the lush green trees - making it much easier for anyone needing to visit able to locate the potential house site.

Towards the end of 2011, we had engaged an engineer ourselves to take some initial soil tests. There is something very cool about knowing your landscape is comprised of Jurassic dolerite and Triassic sandstone...

Given the frightening  unusual  complex  challenging nature of our site, architect Neal Mackintosh recommended that we get the input of a few professionals first - before he considered putting pen to paper.
This was very sage advice, especially considering:

1. we didn't know if the top of the cliff could be built on
2. the shape of the land on top of the cliff would ultimately dictate the shape of the house
3. we didn't know what kind of vehicles would be able to make it up the access road without the road collapsing underneath them
4. Tasmanian law requires a Bushfire Management Plan in rural areas to approve a site

It's been just over a month since we engaged JAWSarchitects.

It's quite amusing to see people's reactions when they ask us what the house looks like and we answer "Absolutely no idea!". Naturally, we would love to be fantasising about designs now, but there would be no point going to all that work, only to find out that the house couldn't be built where we wanted, because we hadn't carried out any due diligence first.

So we were happy at accept Neal's advice that we needed some expert input first.

TIP: Your architect knows more than you do about architecture. Deal with it. You also need to be patient. Try deep breathing if patience doesn't come naturally.

We were also happy to accept Neal's advice when it came to which experts to use - odds were that Neal had far more experience at JAWSarchitects than us when it came to working with Structural Engineers and the like. He recommended a Structural Engineer he had worked with in the past, together with a Land Surveyor. Both provided us with quotes before we agreed to engage them

So far, we have had an initial inspection by the Structural Engineer, and a Land Surveyor carry out a survey of the potential building site (as well as a couple of the trickier corners on the gravel track up to the site). The Bushfire Consultant is due to go out to have a look within the week.

When all the reports are collated, then Neal will be able to start developing the design...