Building permits documents in England

Hi all,

In Sweden building permits are public records and everyone can get them from the local munincipality. These drawings are to scale, covers everything and are in many aspects much better than the material architecture firms publish themselves, as that is in a sense more a sales material.

I’m going to analyze a building in England for school. Does anybody know what documents are public records and where to access them?

Thanks

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The building in question is the Saw Swee Student Centre in London. The architects’ website has a long list of publications (that’s very nice of them!) but the material is either quite badly scanned and you can’t get exact measurements, or incomplete.

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@TIG would probably know about this sort of thing.

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Maybe @TommyK too?

@simoncbevans

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As I understand it Building Regulations drawings are not public record or at least if they are I’ve never been able to get hold of any unless one contacts the relevant Building Control Body and asks nicely…

The approved planning drawings should be accessible on the Local Planning Authority’s website.

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Does this help…

https://idoxpa.westminster.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=documents&keyVal=PGE15MRPL0W00

Actually that’s for the installation of external spotlights.

Try this one https://idoxpa.westminster.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=documents&keyVal=KYLXJFRP06A00

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Thanks! This material is absolutely perfect!

Contacted them directly?

I could imagine it is considered rude to use up their time to ask for something that likely is a public record, but I don’t know. Maybe they would just be honored that an architecture student is interested :stuck_out_tongue: .

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Most firms happy to assist students Christina… we have all been there :slight_smile:

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Besides, we all take pity on anyone who chose architecture as a profession :slight_smile:

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:laughing: I haven’t chosen yet :stuck_out_tongue: . Could be architecture, could be IT, could be both combined.

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As a designer … I’d chose UX over architecture (best to you)

Consider architecture-related engineering (structural, MEP, etc.) too, Christina.
They can give you as much opportunity to be creative, and they pay much better!

A part of me really wants to be an architect, a computer engineer and a constructional engineer all at the same time. However I think that even with tuition free college it may be more profitable to work than staying in school for that long.

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http://epicpublic.planningni.gov.uk/publicaccess/
this is a source of all the information submitted as part of a planning application in Northern Ireland, including the drawings.

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Local Goverments are a great resource for building and planning documents as most modern countries require public display of all approval submissions…

E.g. https://online2.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/DA/OnExhibitions

That is true.