House Planning - A Step by Step Guide for House Designing in Sri Lanka


We Create Your House Plan, Floor Plans, Home Design and Office Projects

Kedalla Design and Construction (pvt) Ltd

No:247 1/3
Peradeniya Road, Kandy (20000)
Sri Lanka

Important steps to follow when you plan your dream home

with Kedalla Design and Construction (pvt) Ltd


Your building project might be quick and simple or complex. It might be an alteration, a renovation or a completely new build. It could be a seaside holiday house or a multi-unit central city apartment building.

Every person who is planning to build a home has their individual expectations and ambitions in terms of the final result of their housing project. The process of designing a home is very demanding and challenging, as it is a crucial stage that is responsible for making your vision a reality.

The size and complexity of the finished build can affect the duration and complexity of the process. Whatever you're planning, you should generally follow these stages:

Stages of Designing a House

This is ‘A step-by-step guide to designing your dream home’ with Kedalla. It is based on home designing, construction and renovation experience of Eng. Amila Perera and created and delivered by Kedalla Design and Construction (pvt) Ltd. This guide will take you through main stages in developing bare land into a well-organized construction site equipped with experts who can successfully build your dream home.

Our Architectural Firm offers a wide range of architectural services to our individual and business clients. Our clients in Colombo, Kandy, Matara, Galle, Kurunegala, Nuwaraeliya and all over Sri Lanka receive personalized service that is beyond comparison.

Let's look at house planning procedure in detail,

Step - 1: List Important Requirements for Your House Design


At first, we need to answer the question what is a list and what is it used for? The brief sets out all of the crucial requirements for your house project and needs to be created before you engage with your design team(or Architects). The brief will be an evolving document throughout the life of the building project.

Basic room information and room sizes -

When you prepare your list of requirements, First thing you need to include in your list is the basic room information and room sizes. It is helpful to use the measurements of your current rooms, as long as they meet your expectations. The second aspect you need to consider is your building flow – the layout/structure of the internal rooms.

Layout / Structure of the house -

The second aspect you need to consider is your building flow – the layout/structure of the internal rooms.

It is important to make sure that it will be consistent with yours and your family’s lifestyle. For instance, if you need an open-plan kitchen connected to the dining room so that you can cook while spending time with your family and entertaining guests.

Architectural style of the home -

The next point that you should include in your list is its architectural style. Do you want a traditional or contemporary house? Also is there any exceptional element of the landscape close to your house that you want to see from your bedroom window? Maybe you just want to position the house to receive the optimal amount of sunlight?

Budget for architectural design and construction -

Your budget is one of the most important elements of the list and something that is often kept secret from all but your partner. The amount of money you can afford to spend on your project determines the architect’s design significantly, so it is important to set the budget as accurately as possible. You must also consider how you are going to manage the cash flow throughout the key stages of the project.

The timescale for your architectural design and construction -

If you want to finish your project on time, and to be successful in home construction – timing truly is everything! Having a structured programme of works in place with all of your professionals scheduled is the only way you can keep your project on track.

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Step - 2: Prepare more information needed for Kedalla Architect / House Planner


It is important to give your architect as much information as possible so that they have a clear understanding of what it is you want. Before you meet with your architect for the first time, it’s worth spending some time writing down what you want to achieve. For example, you might want your architect’s advice, you might only want them to provide drawings, or you might want them to manage every part of the project for you. Have these notes with you so that you can look over them during the meeting.

Drawing sketches -

One way of doing this is by drawing sketches. You shouldn’t worry about the quality, as long as it portrays your idea and don’t be surprised if your architect will have to change your project in order to make it buildable.

Provide Photos & Pictures/Images -

you can give your home designer the pictures that express particular designs that you would like to implement in your project, and share it with everyone who is involved.

Provide land Information -

Land information is an important requirement for land development and building planning. Most likely your architect needs a topographic map in order to design a new home or to design a remodel of an existing house. The topographic plan will show any existing features on the property, as well as showing the contour lines which delineate lines of a constant elevation. If you are remodeling an existing home, it will be critical for the architect to know the setbacks from the existing home to the property lines. If you are extending your new construction right up to the setback lines, we would advise that a boundary survey be done as well. Using this survey, your contractor now has the property lines clearly staked in the field prior to beginning construction.

Relevant other plans

  • Survey Plans & Diagrams/Approved B.O.P
  • Cadestral Surveys
  • Engineering Surveys

Provide required documents -

Process of Building Planning Approvals and Land Subdivision Approvals handled by the respective Local Authorities and provide your architects documents required to attached with your building application. Ex: Application form, Survey Plan, Deed, Approvals of the Other Institutes, Location Map etc...

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Step - 3: Time to look for the right people to help design your dream home.


After completing the optimal list for your House Plan, it’s time to look for the right people to help design your dream home.

A land surveyor -

If you don not have your own land, you may appoint a land surveyor to assess the plots you like, in order to choose the one that suits you best. It can help you to confirm the boundaries of your plot as well as the connection to basic services such as drainage, electricity and water.

An architect / architectural designer / Home Designer -

An architect/architectural designer/an architect’s technician needs to be involved in each stage of your project. It is essential that an engineer is also involved. It is important that your appointed architect fully understands your lifestyle and preferences so that your vision for your home is achieved.

A structural engineer -

A structural engineer is also required for your house design as they play a key part in the design and are involved with the construction teams. A structural engineer is needed at the detailed design stage and during the process of acquiring a building plan approval. At Kedalla we always suggest getting a soil investigation study completed on any site you are looking at or have purchases, as soon as possible.

An engineer -

An engineer will dig some trial pits around your plot and assess the quality of soil and its bearing capacity. They can also carry out a porosity test, which involves filling a large hole in the ground with water a number of times and measuring how long it takes to sink into the ground. If the water does not drain away it means that you will not be able use standard drainage solutions.

A quantity surveyor -

You may want a quantity surveyor to assess the detailed construction cost.

A planning consultant -

Depending on the difficulty of the project and any contentious planning issues, you may also need a planning consultant.

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Step - 4: The Initial Design


During this stage, You as the client will be involved intensively with your architect or your home designer.

Sketch designs -

Following a review of the project list, it is time to get an initial project timeline that states how the project is set up from start to finish. Then you will do a site review and soil investigation study on the site with the help of your engineer. It is important to get as much information about the site from the very beginning. It involves testing the bearing capacity of the ground and a porosity test to determine if the ground is suitable for natural drainage solutions. Your architect will go off with the information provided by you and produce initial sketch designs, these should be presented to you and reviewed – to check whether they meet your expectations.

Communicate with your architect / architectural designer / Home Designer -

Remember that it is very important to communicate with your team regularly and review every design aspect of your house. During the design progress you should be looking to get 2D drawings including, plans, sections and elevations. It is helpful to get two main variations of an option from your designer.

A design for your dream home -

If you don not like where the design is going, you need to communicate it to your designers and they have to start again. To reiterate, you must love the design for your dream home.

Involving a quantity surveyor or a contractor -

Once your design is agreed, you may focus on involving a quantity surveyor or a contractor who can complete a budget cost exercise. If any contentious planning issues arrive, you may do a pre-application enquiry with the planning team.

This stage should last between three and eight weeks. After you are completely happy with the design, which meets all your requirements, you can proceed to the planning stage.

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Step - 5: The Planning Stage


At this stage you will be working with your architect or home designer, and they will start to get involved. You will need a good planning consultant if there are any contentious issues with the proposals or your site. The other specialists you may need to work with are a flood consultant (He will need to understand the potential risk of flooding when designing and developing the new site. He will also need to consider how your site may affect potential flooding elsewhere in the community – especially if it sits within a known flood zone), an arborist(is a professional in the practice of arboriculture, which is the cultivation, management, and study of individual trees, shrubs, vines, and other perennial woody plants in dendrology and horticulture) and an ecologist (study the interrelationships between organisms and their environments. For example, they may research how the creatures in forests, deserts, wetlands, or other ecosystems interact with each other, as well as their environments). This is a time to take a look at any relevant planning policies; is your plot green-belt, Conservation Area, or your home has an exceptional architecture

3D rendered models and images -

All the drawings and sketches from the initial design stage will be updated and 3D rendered models and images issued to you. Choosing an architect that works in a 3D drawing package, will show you the house on the proposed site and will give you an idea of what it is going to look like.

Visit the neighbours -

It is advised to visit the neighbours personally just before submitting the planning application. It is always better to personally discuss your plans with them.

House plan approval -

Process of Building Planning Approvals and Land Subdivision Approvals handled by the UDA (Urban Development Authority).

The application and documents required for approvals need to be submitted via the online planning portal of UDA website (with some limitations) or handed over to relevant officer at UDA, Pradeshiya Shaba or Minucipal Council and it will be registered by the local planning authority once you pay the processing fees. Then application will be processed internally and at the same time, the supporting documents and plans will go out to any relevant institutions for their clearances. Once they received all the clearances, and if all the documents are suitable,the document will be forwarded to planning committee for approvals.

If the planning committee approved your application, they will be granted your development permit and approved building plans.

If the answer is negative (Plan is rejected), you will have time to review the documents and you can appeal the decision with the planning department or Government.

After getting the planning approval you will be ready for the next stage.

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Step - 6: Preparing Construction Drawings


At this stage you will be involved with your Architect, Structural engineer, Quantity surveyer, Electrical engineer and Machanical Engineer.This stage is often omitted by most of the home owners in order to try and save costs.

However, if you want to be a typical self builder you need to make sure, that you can provide a contractor with as much information as possible. It will let them build exactly what you want and eliminate grey areas.

Construction drawings or Working drawings provide dimensions, graphical information that can be used by: a contractor to construct the works, or by suppliers to fabricate components of the works or to assemble or install components. Along with specifications and bills of quantitiesor schedules of work, they form a part of the 'production information', that is prepared by designers and passed to the construction team to enable a project to be constructed.

Types of other drawings needed for house designing & construction

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Step - 7: Construction method


After your planning approval is granted, you need to choose the construction method you want to implement. Need to decide which procurement route you are going down. Is it going to be a full Self Build, is it going to be project managed or are you going to appoint a main contractor.as well as

The option that you choose will hugely impact your budget, the amount and the type of information required. It will have a strong influence on many other aspects of the project. It can affect the speed of the build, as well as the energy efficiency.

If you choose full Self Build route, where you are required to appoint individual contractors, you will need individual drawing packages for the ground worker, the window and door supplier, external cladding, the roofer, the joiner etc. You need to make sure that you have all this information on hand or be able to provide them when asked.

If you are going for a main contractor route or project manager, a bill of quantities (BOQ) need to be completed. All those documents will be then given to three or four of each contractor, and then the quotes will be reviewed and the preferred contractors appointed.

After you go through all those stages you are ready to start building your dream home.

Our House Designs

Bring you traditional, modern and contemporary layout plans for a wide variety of living spaces in both urban and rural locales

We can help you modify one of our existing plans below, finalize drawings and put the right materials package together.

Designs Done By Eng.Amila Perera


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The Best Place to Design Our Dream Home is - Kedalla


Our experienced staff have been guiding home owners through above process for over a decade in Sri Lanka. We will design and create blueprints that you can use and we provide both design-build service. We are,

A Limited Liability Company

The Registration number: PV 18553.

Recognized by These Institutions


Institution for Construction Training and Development (ICTAD)

National Construction Association of Sri Lanka

Central Provincial Council

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Kedalla Design and Construction (pvt) Ltd proudly serve their services in all over Sri Lanka.

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"Kedalla is an ideal place for house planning in Kandy area. They are expert in that field. Creative and reliable. Explained all the facts in friendly manner and everything is fair. Trusted service. You planned our future shelter the best. We wish you all the best. Welldone "Kedalla"

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