Residential Architectural Design for Builders and Developers
At KGA Studio Architects we help our clients build community through great design. We’re listeners, collaborators, and leaders, with more than 45 years of award-winning design experience serving home builders and developers.
We specialize in market-driven residential and community design that achieves your project goals and exceeds buyer expectations. Our thoughtful and pragmatic approach delivers quality, distinctive, and buildable designs that set your project apart from the competition.
What We Design
The KGA team has experience in designing a wide variety of housing types and amenities. Our focus areas include single family detached homes, townhomes, duplexes, infill development, build to rent, custom homes and remodels, multifamily, and amenity buildings and spaces.
Informed by market research, the latest building technologies, and our combined decades of experience, we design housing that’s appealing to your buyers and balance sheet. In other words, we create communities where people love to call home (and your salespeople say sell themselves).
Single Family Homes
Single Family Homes
Community Amenities
Community Amenities
Attached & Multifamily
Attached & Multifamily
How We Help Builders & Developers Like You Succeed
Simply put, we help our clients’ communities outperform in their respective markets with great design. Our team’s residential architectural and community design experience translates to a breadth of knowledge that allows us to hit the ground running from day one.
We consider ourselves an extension of your team, which is why we focus on three key disciplines to better position your projects for success:
Project Management
Our client relationships form the bedrock of each project’s success. As such, reliable and accurate communication is essential. Our project management approach puts organization and proactive communication at the center. We are big-picture thinkers while committed to the details.
Contracts and service agreement oversight, budget management, meeting leadership, and regular progress reports are a few of our capabilities to ensure all parties are on the same page and in sync.
Site-Specific Architecture
Each piece of land brings with it unique attributes and possibilities. We identify the best characteristics of a community’s site to optimize the land plan and create community and project design that plays to its strengths.
We’ll help you decide what type of housing to build and in what density, along with elevations, amenities, floorplans, and features that position your development for success.
Client-Driven Design
We believe successful design is one that serves your project and meets its goals. We create designs that cater to your targeted buyers, your company’s priorities, and your company’s brand.
With KGA as your trusted partner, we can help you articulate your vision and bring it to life.
Services for Home Builders and Developers
Our full range of services allows us to meet you where you are and adapt to your team’s project development cycle. Whether it’s end-to-end design and pre-construction services, design only, or something in between, our team has the people, skills, and industry know-how to take your project from vision to construction.
Architectural Design
Architectural design for home builders and developers is at the heart of what we do. We have worked on nearly every housing type imaginable, bringing to the table a spirit of innovation and a focus on creating site-informed product for your specific buyer profiles.
- Single Family Detached Homes
- Duplexes and Paired Homes
- Townhomes
- Multifamily
- Amenity Buildings and Spaces
- Build to Rent
- Infill
Architectural Portfolio Management
- Plan, elevation, details and section revisions and modifications required for re-use of existing plans in new communities
- CAD file conversions to REVIT
- Value Engineering consultation
- Plan reviews for retooling/design input on existing elevations or floor plans
Land Planning & Community Design
Every successful project starts with a thoughtful land plan. Our team’s experience with land planning allows you to maximize your site’s best attributes with amenities, housing types, and architecture that’s distinctive, memorable, and fully integrates with the land’s characteristics.
Our approach to land planning and community design includes:
- Integrating architecture with the land plan.
- Appropriate housing type(s) for a community’s desired density and needs.
- Land plan optimization that meets your goals, from views or density to privacy or shared common spaces.
- Studying the site for opportunities to turn challenges into assets.
Pre-Development
Your project’s earliest stages are the most critical to its success, which is why we offer our home builder and developer clients a full range of pre-development capabilities, all under one roof. Residential building is hard enough with many moving parts, so we help make each phase as efficient as possible.
Our comprehensive pre-development services include:
- Site Feasibility Studies
- Schematic Site Planning
- Visioning
- Entitlements
- Code Research
- Community Design Guidelines
Who We Work With
Industry leaders. Innovators. Problem solvers. KGA Studio Architects is privileged to partner with some of the most successful and respected names in the home building industry.
Our Design Process
Pre-Development & Programming
This foundational first step helps you determine the best way to utilize a site to achieve your objectives. We translate the market study into a program that’s appropriate for the goals of the project. This includes discovering areas of strength and opportunity that will inform the target market, housing type or types, and density.
From here, our team develops a feasibility study. This will inform us if the product type is correct, based on the number of units achieved. Using the number and types of units, we can start developing a plan matrix. A plan matrix maps out the targeted square footages and plan programmatic requirements for a series of plans, including room sizes, types, and plan features. In this phase, our team also familiarizes itself with the municipality, along with its zoning codes and building department requirements, to ensure design compliance from the start.
Schematic Design
Using the plan matrix created in the Pre-Development phase, we create conceptual floorplans to explore potential layouts and arrangements. These early concepts serve as the basis of dialogue for the design charrette, a work session with all stakeholders to work through the plan and elevation concepts. The team’s feedback and ideas are invaluable in this early stage, as they create ownership and an understanding of the project’s design goals.
Upon conclusion of the design charrette, we take the concepts back and refine them based on the team’s input. From there, our team begins conceptual elevations for each plan, ensuring conformity to design guidelines and zoning requirements. Upon client approval of these plans and elevations, we move into Design Development.
Design Development
This is the phase where we begin creating the documents in Revit that will be used for construction. Working closely with your purchasing and architectural teams, we incorporate your unique building standards and specifications. We also develop a kit of parts for each plan and elevation, collaborating with consultants (yours and ours) along the way to ensure everything is buildable, reduces waste, and minimizes cost overruns.
Construction Drawings
The process culminates in construction drawings for permit submittal and construction. After we finish collecting your team’s and consultants’ feedback, we make the last round of revisions to each plan set. From here, we complete an exhaustive review of municipality zoning and building codes to ensure compliance. These final few steps help reduce comments from the building department’s review process. Our goal is to keep your project on schedule, avoiding unnecessary delays and costs.
Construction Observation
Our team’s involvement during the construction phase will vary depending on your company’s resource needs and preferences. We are available for a multitude of services during the construction phase, such as frame walks, shop drawing reviews, RFIs, and attending OAC meetings.
Testimonials
Frequently Asked Questions
A residential architect takes care of site planning, community design, and architecture, depending on the scale and scope of the project. Their role is to help realize the project’s goals and vision through thoughtful architectural design that appeals to an identified buyer profile. An architect may also offer land planning and pre-development services in addition to their standard fees and schedule.
Cost per square foot is the preferred fee method at KGA, however there are many variables in architectural design for home builders that impact project costs. The project’s scale and scope of work are the primary determining factors. Other services like land planning and construction observation are tailored to meet the specific needs of each community and billed per project.
If you’re interested in preventing unwelcome surprises, unnecessary project delays, and saving costs, it’s in your best interest to hire an architect for your development. An experienced residential architect will be well-versed in local building codes and the ins and outs of the permitting process to ensure your project stays on schedule. They will lead and manage all or some of the design and pre-construction phases, and can help you monitor and keep your budget on track. An architect can also assist with your company’s value engineering efforts, in addition to providing support to your architectural team with house plan changes and portfolio management.
A design charrette is an intensive work session between a client’s key project stakeholders and KGA to build consensus on plan and elevation concepts. This meeting of the minds is a safe space for ideation, creation, and problem-solving. Through dialogue and collaboration, both the client and KGA team narrow the project’s design focus and revise initial sketches to reflect the agreed-upon details. This kind of real-time collaboration accelerates the design process and welcomes the client’s contributions to the project’s design progression.
A site analysis and feasibility study evaluates a piece of land early in the pre-development phase. Its results will identify if the land can be used as intended or if there are any constraints that impact its viability. It takes into account land conditions and characteristics, local zoning and regulations, building codes, and financial considerations to determine if the parcel is the right fit to meet the development’s purpose and goals.
