Our Practice - Vagdia & Holmes

Our Practice

Vagdia and Holmes are committed to delivering high quality built environment solutions, through excellent client service and attention to detail.

We have a history of working and serving Churches, community groups, third sector trusts, public and private sector clients, for over forty years.

We work hard to offer a professional architectural service, by listening and responding to the needs of our Clients. We work for Clients across the region, and are also currently covering projects across the country.

Our team consists of two working Directors, closely supported by four Architectural Assistants, and a Practice Secretary. Our Practice is commissioned to work on a general cross section of projects, and by virtue of our reputation, we have a strong skill-set in ecclesiastical, community and volunteer-group based projects.

Our Client profile includes commissions from public and private sector, Charitable Trusts, Councils, Church Groups, residential clients, and a number of local Contractors and developers undertaking speculative development projects. Projects range from a few hundred pounds, up to £16m.

Vagdia and Holmes is registered with ConstructionLine, is an active member of FORCE, the Forum for Constructing Excellence in Coventry and Warwickshire, and an active member of the Coventry and Warwickshire Chamber of Commerce.

The Practice is also registered to work on ecclesiastical and listed buildings with the Coventry and Leicester Diocese Office, and has undertaken a number of commissions with English Heritage.

We employ a local labour force, and are recognised as a training partner by a number of Universities and Colleges.

Our History

We can trace our business history back to 1946, to a Practice based in Coventry.

The Practice was then led by Mr Roland Sidwell, who undertook a number of architectural commissions, including work for a number of commercial Clients, Church groups and a vast range of speculative and one-off residential Clients.

In 1980, Mr Kenneth Holmes, who one of Mr Sidwell’s Architects invested in the Practice, and took it forward to continue to trade as ‘Kenneth Holmes Associates’.

The Practice continued to serve the existing Client portfolio, and expanded to include a number of commissions focussed on the conservation and restoration of historic buildings.

Mr Dhiran Vagdia joined the Practice in 1999, and in 2007 joined the business as a Director. The latest incarnation of Practice, ‘Vagdia and Holmes”, now strives to take the business forward further, continually expanding the range of Clients, but ultimately, maintaining the Practice’s reputation for Client service.

Our third generation company can now offer a service that embodies traditional values, business integrity, and Client commitment, but with a fresh vision of innovation and contemporary approach.

Our Approach

We operate our Practice with the belief that we are in a service industry. We are passionate about servicing our Clients, and we are committed to project delivery.

Our philosophy is to approach our Clients’ projects with consideration for the long term commercial and social sustainability.

We understand cost versus value, and we use the challenges of finding the balance to ensure benefits, in the interests of our Clients.

We can act quickly, but we also wish to have time to understand our Clients’ aspirations and needs, so that we are working to meet our Client expectations.

Sometimes, we approach projects in different ways. Sometimes, a change to the established practice can yield better results for the Client, design and construction teams. We are not afraid of change.

Our Expectations

We enjoy working for professional and intelligent Clients who have a clear design brief and a project strategy. Our Clients must be able to lead the project with vision, balanced consideration and leadership.

We are accustomed to assisting Clients to set their briefs and strategies, and we have a long and successful history of working individual Clients, working groups and committees.

We know that successful projects are built on excellent risk management, establishing clear project objectives, ensuring clear methodology of instruction and promoting excellent communication.

We expect our Clients to be well resourced financially. If a Client is frightened and worried about costs, or always pursuing the low cost options, we know that they will not be able to focus on ensuring that best value decisions are made, in the interests of their expectations and project delivery.

A culture of ‘lowest price wins’ invites a culture of adversity; if we are always looking to reduce cost, we are not focussing on making best value decisions.

We ask our Clients to use their informed judgement, and skilfully selecting the right choice of Architect.

We hope that we can nurture and develop an ‘ability to achieve’ culture, based on trust, respect and transparency. This helps us build our ‘perfect Client’, with whom, we work to generate long term working relationships.