Edra Quiring
- Desk
- Long table, north end
- Bearing
- N
- In at
- 07:30
Founded the practice after eleven years detailing schools. Draws every scheme to 1:50 by hand before anything is modelled, which is why the sections are honest.
Three people · one room · since 2016
Above the boatyard
Studio · drawing roomN 49° 09′ W 123° 56′08:40
We file ourselves the way we file the houses.
Sillwork took the top floor of a 1940s net loft on Front Street in 2016 and has not grown since. There are three of us and one long table. Edra draws, Nikhil runs the interiors, and Prem walks every site on Thursday mornings whether or not there is anything to look at.
We are registered with the AIBC and carry $5m of professional indemnity. We do not employ juniors to draw someone else's scheme: whoever you meet at the first site visit is the person whose hand is on the drawing when it goes to tender.
The practice turns down roughly two jobs for every one it takes. Usually it is because the budget and the brief cannot both be true, and we would rather say that in week one than in month nine.
Six jobs a year · four houses · two interiors · no competitions
Filed by room, bearing and hour
Nobody here has a job title. They have a desk, a direction they face and the hour they are usually at it.
Nikhil Soneji
- Desk
- Window bay, east
- Bearing
- N 72° E
- In at
- 09:15
Runs the interiors arm and every joinery package. Keeps a shelf of 140 finish samples and will make you hold three of them at the window before he lets you choose.
Prem Chaudhari
- Desk
- Site, wherever it is
- Bearing
- varies
- In at
- Thu 08:00
Forty-one years on building sites, the last nine of them with us. Administers every contract we write and has never once lost an argument with a sub-trade about tolerances.
The one thing we spent money on
A four-metre table and no screens facing the door
Everything else in here is second-hand. The table is 4.1m of Douglas fir on steel trestles, built by the boatyard downstairs for $2,400 in 2017, and it is the only surface in the practice big enough to lay a full set of A1s end to end.
Clients sit at it, not across a desk from it. If you visit, you will be given the north end, which is the side with the light.
Come and sit at it →
Before you write
What we take, and what we send elsewhere
We turn down roughly two enquiries for every one we take, and we try to say so inside a week. None of the answers below will change if you ask us again in person.
Enquiries answered byEdra2 days
The fee for each stage →
Is there a minimum project size?
Effectively yes. Below about $150,000 of construction our fee stops being good value for you — the feasibility note alone is $4,200. For a single room or a kitchen we will usually point you at two joiners we trust and charge nothing.
Will you work outside Vancouver Island?
Only as far as Prem can drive and be back by six. In practice that is Victoria to Campbell River, plus Gabriola, Protection and Newcastle. A site we cannot visit weekly is a site we cannot administer, and we will not pretend otherwise.
Do you produce renders?
No. We build a 1:50 card model and we take you to a finished house with the same orientation. A render shows you a sunny Tuesday in June that may never happen on your lot; standing in a real room at 16:40 in November tells you the truth.
Can you also build it?
We are not the contractor. We tender to three builders from a list of nine we have worked with on the island, and we administer the contract on your side of the table. On six of the eight finished houses the middle tender won.
How long is the wait?
A feasibility note can usually start within three weeks. A full scheme currently starts in the second quarter of next year. If your timetable is fixed and ours does not fit it, we will say so in the first email.
Who owns the drawings?
We do, until the final certificate is issued and the fee is settled; then you get a licence to use them on that lot in perpetuity. You can walk away after any stage and take everything paid for with you.
