Architect Services in Frome and Somerset

Architect Services

Thoughtful architectural design from initial concept through to planning, construction and completion.

The Practice

Every building is unique, so we don’t apply a uniform process to every project. Each endeavour depends on the specific brief, the site's characteristics, and, when applicable, the existing structure.

Harrison Brookes Architects is a RIBA Chartered Practice established in 1999 and based in Frome, Somerset. Work is led directly by the two principal architects, Rhys Brookes and Rebecca Harrison, which means the people you meet at the outset are the people who design and detail your project.

We work on new buildings, extensions, conversions and alterations, and on the repair and adaptation of historic and listed buildings. Whatever the scale, the aim is the same: a considered, well-detailed building that suits the way it will actually be used.

What we do

An architectural service scaled to your project

1

Consultation

A few hours' advice at any stage of a project. Useful when you're weighing up whether something is possible, testing an idea before committing, or need a second opinion on a scheme already underway

2

Full architectural service

Survey and appraisal, feasibility, concept and detailed design, planning applications, specification, tender and contract administration on site, the complete RIBA workflow, tailored to the brief rather than applied wholesale.

3

New buildings

Houses, studios and community buildings designed for their setting. In rural Somerset and Wiltshire that usually means working carefully within landscape and planning constraints, and designing something that earns its place.

4

Extensions and alterations

Additions that improve how a house works without overwhelming what's already there, including extensions to listed buildings and properties in conservation areas, where the design has to satisfy conservation officers as well as the client.

5

Conversions

Barns, agricultural buildings, chapels and redundant structures brought back into use. Conversions are often the most demanding projects we take on, and among the most rewarding.

Who we work with

Private clients alongside organisations with buildings in their care

A small practice working for homeowners and national organisations in the same week is unusual, and it's deliberate. The discipline that a trust or a local authority expects on a repair contract is the same discipline a private house deserves.

Our approach

Design quality, tested against how people live

Design quality

Good design isn't decoration. It's proportion, daylight, the sequence of spaces and the resolution of a junction, the things that are difficult to point at afterwards but that determine whether a building is pleasant to be in

Sustainability and energy

We design for low energy use in occupation, advise on retrofit and fabric improvement, and think carefully about materials. Where an existing building can be improved rather than replaced, that is almost always the lower-carbon answer.

Suited to modern life

Buildings have to work for the people using them now — light, warmth, storage, accessibility, the way a family or an organisation actually moves through a day. Historic character and modern comfort are not in opposition.

Planning and consents

Permission is won by the design, not the paperwork

The practice has particular experience in achieving Planning Permission and Listed Building Consent, including on sites where consent was previously thought unlikely. That experience is less about knowing the system, though we do, and more about designing a scheme that answers the objection before it is raised.

We prepare and submit planning applications, listed building consent applications and supporting heritage information, and deal with planning and conservation officers on your behalf throughout. Where a pre-application discussion will save time, we'll say so.

Selected work

Architectural projects

Rhys Brookes is a RIBA-accredited Specialist Conservation Architect. If your building is listed, in a conservation area, or simply old enough that its future needs careful thought, that work has its own page.

Also from the practice

Working with a listed or historic building?