All great stories have a beginning, this is where ours began.
Waterstone Design was incorporated in 2004.
Waterstone Design was conceived by Stuart Usher in 2002 and incorporated in 2004.
In 2007, David Etherington partnered with Stuart to form the company that we are today. In its early days the company turnover doubled year on year with steady growth in the types and size of project works undertaken.
The company has continued its steady growth, from 2 to 9 members of staff in its first four years, up to 40 at the beginning of 2022 and it looks set to follow this curve over the next five years.
The policy of the company is to be as proactive as possible, imparting our knowledge and expertise in a manner which clients and architects are usually quite surprised to see – given that the trend seems to be for services engineers to be more about the ‘science’ of the services than being an active and useful member of a busy design team.
When we begin work on a new project we are often told that we have taught the architect and client more about services requirements than on any project before. Given that most of these architects and clients are very experienced it has surprised us as services are a fundamental part of any project – and often amount to between 25% and 30% of the budget.
Our service is different because we concentrate our efforts at key stages on the project in ensuring that the services are well catered for within the building, are value engineered to a reasonable extent during design, and are fit for the purpose they are being designed for.
On starting a new residential project for instance, we know the architect will require tank room, intake room, and riser sizes to be reviewed and fixed early on in the scheme – so we will concentrate on providing such information before it is asked of us. Concurrently we know that the SAP ratings may well dictate the building envelope, and as such we make sure these are prepared and the results reported as early as feasibly possible.
As a company we are very much ‘people’ people – we are keen to get along with everybody and set up long term working relationships with people. Our ‘people’ approach has extended to our local community in recent years and we are committed to giving young individuals the opportunity to start out in the industry via a range of earn and learn placements including Apprenticeships and Internships.
To provide a good, proactive, and sound technical service on every project we are involved should not require a supreme effort – it should be the core principle on which a good services consultancy practice is run. We do not see ourselves providing anything more than what we feel is necessary to succeed and build upon what we have achieved already.