Harborne | architects
Harborne’s pubs are the stuff of local legend. Somebody still has to design the houses around them.
Harborne's High Street and the streets around St Peter's Church were built for Birmingham's Victorian professional class, so the bar on some of them was set well over a century ago. Maybe your project sits inside that conservation area. Maybe it's a family extension towards Quinton or Ridgacre, where the constraints are different but no less real. Either way, you've been picturing it for a while. Turning that into something Birmingham City Council will sign off is the harder half, and that's the half we take on.
local proof
From Victorian villas near the High Street to HMOs on the university boundary
One suburb, two very different planning conversations.
Harborne built its reputation on large Victorian and Edwardian villas, put up for Birmingham's professional class within a good walk of the city. A good number of those streets, clustered around the High Street and St Peter's Church, sit inside the Harborne Conservation Area, which sets a genuinely high bar for anyone adding to one of these houses.
Head towards the University of Birmingham and Queen Elizabeth Hospital on the Edgbaston boundary instead, and the conversation changes completely. Demand for shared housing runs high enough there that Birmingham City Council maintains an Article 4 Direction across parts of this side of the city, removing the automatic right to convert a family house into a house in multiple occupation. That's a different planning question entirely: not matching a Victorian gable, but what a house is legally allowed to become.
Whether you're extending a family villa near the conservation area or reworking a rental property closer to the university boundary, knowing which conversation you're actually in matters more than any generic planning advice.
architectural services in Harborne
Four ways in, one place to start.
House Extensions
Rear, side and loft extensions across Harborne, from a conservation-area rebuild near the High Street to a straightforward rear addition out towards Quinton.
New Build & Replacement Homes
Replacing a tired infill or adding a new home on a garden plot, drawn to answer the street it's on, conservation area or not, rather than lifted from a catalogue.
Remodels & Interior Reconfiguration
Plenty of Harborne's grandest villas were laid out for Victorian servants, not a modern family. We open the plan up without touching what the street sees.
Small Sites & Landlord Schemes
HMOs, conversions and small schemes near the university and hospital, designed with the Article 4 Direction built into the brief, not discovered halfway through.
Got a Harborne project taking shape in your head?
A free, no-obligation conversation with the studio, not a switchboard. Ring, email or use the form, and nothing gets decided until you're ready.
0121 663 6084
JSA Architects, The Pavillions, Cranmore Drive, Shirley, Solihull B90 4SB (our nearest studio to Harborne, a short hop across the south side of the city).
what to expect
What happens once you get in touch.
Free consultation
It starts with a conversation, at the property or over a call. What you've got, what it needs to become, and what you're working with.
Design & feasibility
Ideas tested on the page and against the policy, then a direction you sign off before there's a full drawing set to pay for.
Planning submission
Application drawn, submitted and managed. When the case officer comes back with questions, we're the ones who field them.
Building Regulations
Everything the build needs on paper: construction details, specs and schedules, drawn up so your contractor and the inspector aren't left guessing.
Site support
There's no vanishing act at approval. Through the build, you've got a direct line for the questions that only surface once the work starts.
Got a Harborne project taking shape in your head?
A free, no-obligation conversation with the studio, not a switchboard. Nothing gets decided until you're ready.
FAQ's
