+015394 37794 info@stephengrindrod.co.uk     Oaks Farmhouse Loughrigg Ambleside LA22 9HQ

 

Our Skills, Services and Process

Specialised Sustainable Building

At Stephen Grindrod LTD, we specialise in natural, sustainable and heritage building and offer a complete package of complementary skills and services. We also offer a unique client engagement and project management process for you to consider.

Skills and services

With 40 years of experience delivering successful building projects, we are well placed to cover all aspects of your project, from initial scoping meetings through project management and delivery of all the trades and skills required to complete your job to a high standard in an efficient way.
  • Project management - see our process page for details on our preferred approach.
  • All general building skills
  • Groundworks
  • Walling, including traditional stonework and masonry
  • Joinery, including heritage joinery
  • Roofing/traditional slating
  • Lime works including limecrete floors, hempcrete, pointing, rendering and screeds.
  • Plastering, including traditional lime and clay plasters.
  • Painting and decorating, including natural paints, limewashes and natural pigments.
  • Scaffolding and plant provision.
We can design a project around your needs and adapt to a light touch of project management for those clients who want to be involved or can oversee all aspects of the project management and build.

Our holistic design and deliver Process

We will consider all projects, so please email us with your enquiry. However, we are most interested in projects that allow us to apply our skills and expertise and best align with our mission and values. We have developed a holistic design and delivery process to achieve the best outcomes for such projects.

We believe the conventional approach to completing a building project does not work well for the architect or the builder and certainly does not best serve the client’s needs.

In a conventional approach, a customer will generally approach an architect with ideas, and the architect will draw up plans for the client that attempt to match their ambitions. Once the plans are agreed upon, the architect will go out to tender to try to get the best deal for the client.

Stephen Grindrod Skills and Services

Sounds good, right?

Unfortunately, builders often attempt to win the tender by pricing unrealistically, which can compromise the quality of the materials or lead to the use of less skilled staff.

In addition to this fundamental problem, many architects and builders aren’t familiar with natural or sustainable materials and their benefits for the client and environment, so these rarely get included as options in the design process.

This is not the best way to get the house or renovation of your dreams! In these scenarios, it is almost impossible to get a sustainable home that uses natural materials.

To achieve better outcomes for people and planet, a more collaborative and holistic approach is required.

Instead of unrealistic plans that cannot be achieved with high build quality or achieving a high-quality build that compromises the functional needs of the future occupant, what if the architect, builder, and client developed the project together to best serve the client’s long-term needs?

What if the client could fully understand the benefits and costs of the different building material options? What if a home could be designed to reduce the client’s impact on the planet and help the occupants become healthier?

We offer a holistic design and deliver process that can facilitate this process.

Book a free session with Stephen and Caroline at our showroom to develop your regenerative context—a vision document that includes your environmental, social, and economic scope. This document forms the basis for a strategic definition that the builder and architect can use to progress your project.