Urban Design Build

Janet Aitchison
5 Star
Overall, UDB did a very good job on the renovation and extension of my flat in London. It was a challenging project because of the pandemic lockdown which caused delays in materials arriving, and prevented me from visiting the site very often to monitor progress. However, Ed and Sarah were good communicators and always honest and helpful. The quality of the finished work is excellent, and there were no surprise hidden costs. The pace of work slowed at the very end of the job which was a little disappointing after the earlier good progress. I would certainly use this company again.
Friday 12th February 2021

Joe King
5 Star
ED and his team did an excellent job on my extension. All the workers were hard working , polite and conscientious. I would certainly recommend them and would use them again on any future projects.
Thursday 23rd May 2019

Marco G5
5 Star
Urban Design Build In 2016 we asked Urban to build a hip-to-gable loft extension. The build was very well managed from the start, with good attention to detail at every stage, from the structural engineering drawings right through to the final wall finish. The building team were polite, discreet and hard working, turning up promptly, and working thoughtfully and methodically throughout the day. Having building work done when you're living in can be pretty disruptive at times but the disturbance was always kept to a minimum and great care was taken to protect us and the existing walls, carpets and furniture from the inevitable dust and rubble created by the work. Loft extensions in a terrace require a steel beam that is supported by the party wall. There was no infringement on the other side of the party wall, which was important because we didn't want to fall out with the neighbours. We were invited to look over the work every week and they were happy to incorporate our requests for wall and window positioning and interior detailing before each section was started. The site manager is someone that you can have a laugh with, he's a good listener and was happy to explain the finer points of the building work. We had a strong sense that he and his team were bringing skills from their many previous projects and had already anticipated many of the concerns that we had along the way. Once the main structure of the extension was finished, equally polite and efficient subcontractors were brought in, on time and each finished their work to a high standard. Building regulations were explained and strictly adhered to, so there were no problems when each part of the regulations were signed off by the inspector. The work took a few months longer than anticipated, but remained on budget, and the quality of work has in our view been excellent value for money, particularly as the value of the house has now increased substantially beyond the cost of the building work. At the end of the job, we asked them to do a lot of extra work, this increased the budget slightly, but they were happy to fit the work in, and the extra cost was very reasonable. A year and a half after the build and it's as good as when it was finished; rock solid, no movement or cracks inside or out, in spite of huge temperature changes and very heavy downpours. It's comforting to know that the GRP roof, which they fit as standard, has a 25 year guarantee. If you want a smart, value-for-money builder that you can get on with, we would certainly recommend Urban Design Build.
Tuesday 15th October 2019

Julia Eccleshare
4 Star
Urban Design Build did an excellent job on identifying the cause of a tricky leak in a dormer window on a very high roof. Once the job of relacing the dormer and reattaching it to the roof had been done they were creative about how to minimize costs by gaining access from a flat roof rather than putting up scaffolding from the ground. The work was fiddly and involved access right through the house but they were always considerate when in the house and careful to hoover up behind them!
Sunday 14th October 2018

Nat Brooks
1 Star
My partner and I recently bought our first house, which hadn't been touched since the 1960's and was in need of a lot of renovation work, has no hot water, central heating or the facility for a washing machine, but we were very excited about taking on the challenge of making our house a home. Although Urban Design Build does not have many reviews on Google, we saw that they were highly rated, the standard of their work looked good from their website, and they offer a complete design and build package, which meant they could take care of the architectural drawings, planning applications, and then move on to the construction of our project. And after meeting Ed, we were very positive about working with them. Once we had paid UDB to begin the design stage, and were introduced to their Architect Sarah Ross, this is where the issues begun. We found the service from Sarah very impersonal, unknowledgeable and condescending. We believe the drawing stage took far too long, with constant chasing on our part, and that she had not even carried out any due diligence when submitting our planning application to see what had been approved on our road, or what approval route they had gone down. During the planning process, we in fact had to help make a case for ourselves against the council's first refusal on our plans, by doing a site measurement of our neighbours' extensions, so we had a counter argument (this was then approved by the council). We understand that planning approval is not guaranteed, but we feel we were not supported by Sarah, with her comments usually being on the side of the council or our neighbours rather than us, and usually asking us what we wanted to do, rather than putting forward options. When you pay someone for a service, you should expect that person to be knowledgeable in their field, offer advice and know what the best route is to achieve the best outcome for you. Unfortunately, this isn't the service we received. Halfway through planning, we started to speak to Ed again regarding finalising details of the build, but the mood was very different from him; He had no idea what was going on regarding our planning application, was not helpful, and when questioned on timescale for our build and a potential start date, we were told he would get back to us. 4 months later, with no email responses or call backs from Ed or James, and after a stressful 3 months of planning, we finally got an email back from James that they were now booked up until the summer of 2021, would not be continuing on to the construction stage with us, and good luck with the build. After dealing with UDB for 7 months, we feel very let down that they did not have the decency to notify us sooner, and it took us constantly chasing them just to get this information out of them. If they had been honest sooner, we could have lined up another builder to continue with after planning, but now find ourselves having to start the search again, and possibly heading into another winter without hot water or central heating. We cannot recommend Urban Design Build as a builder, as we were not given the chance to get to that stage with them, but we can definitely say, that we cannot recommend their design service as it is very poor value for money.
Tuesday 29th September 2020