More than Architectural Drawings

A partner for your Dream Home

Acre Design is a residential architectural practice helping homeowners across Newcastle, North Tyneside, and the wider North East extend, improve, and transform their homes with confidence.

Start with a Needs & Options Review

Acre Design team, North Shield's leading architect design studio for residetial house extensions and rennovations in Newcastle, North Shields and the North East

About Acre Design

Acre Design is a North East residential architectural studio specialising in elegant, practical house extensions and renovations. More than 1,200 families have trusted our architectural designers to create homes that feel beautiful, functional, and ready for the future.

Extending or refurbishing a home is a major investment. Many clients arrive with strong ideas but understandable concerns about planning rules, build costs, and choosing whether an architect or an architectural designer is right for them. Our process is designed to remove uncertainty, guiding you from first sketch to final build with clarity and reassurance.

Meet the team

Alistair Crerar

Managing Director

Alistair has over 20 years’ experience in the architecture and design industry, with a decade in building control assessing architects’ drawings and overseeing compliance on site. As Managing Director of Acre Design, he leads a skilled team of architectural designers and technicians, guiding clients through residential extensions and refurbishments from concept to completion.

Kyle Whitehead

Senior Architectural Technician

Kyle Whitehead is a Senior Architectural Technician at Acre Design with over 10 years of experience in the architecture and design industry, specialising in residential extensions, renovations, and bespoke home design. He delivers innovative yet practical architectural design solutions, combining creativity with rigorous technical knowledge to bring client visions to life.

Katie Crerar

Enquiries Lead

As Enquiries Lead at Acre Design, Katie is often the first point of contact for new clients. She takes pride in welcoming people to the team and guiding them through the early stages of their house extension or refurbishment journey, ensuring every enquiry is handled with care and professionalism.

Josh McHugh

Senior Architectural Technician

As a Senior Architectural Technician at Acre Design, Josh brings strong technical expertise to residential and commercial projects across the North East. With experience in architectural design from schools and new-build housing to bespoke home extensions, he specialises in turning concepts into practical, buildable solutions that deliver lasting value for clients.

Mae

Architect

Mae is an architect working remotely with Acre Design from the Philippines. With experience across residential and commercial projects, she specialises in design visualisation, producing 3D concepts that help clients see and feel their home extension or refurbishment long before construction begins.

Tristan Cetra

Civil Engineer and Estimator

Tristan is a Civil Engineer and Estimator working remotely with Acre Design from the Philippines. He specialises in providing accurate cost estimates and technical support, helping ensure home extension and refurbishment projects are delivered efficiently and within budget.

Why Nort East Homeowners choose Acre Design

Investing six figures into your home calls for more than basic drawings. Homeowners want clarity, confidence, and a residential architect who protects their investment. Our architectural process delivers exactly that.

Clarity from the start: A tailored Needs and Options Review provides early design options, outline build costs, and a clear view of what is achievable.
Stress-free guidance: Planning applications, permissions, and drawings are handled through a structured process.
Investment protection: Design fees prevent costly build-stage mistakes and keep your project on track.
Support beyond drawings: Quotes, tender packs, and guidance continue throughout construction.
Specialists in extensions: A focus on residential house extensions and renovations across the North East.

Designing homes that work for real life

Homeowners approach us with many different goals. Some need more space for a growing family. Others want a contemporary kitchen-dining extension for entertaining. Many simply want a layout that feels calm, light, and intuitive every day.

Architectural design goes beyond adding square metres. Our work shapes your home so it supports how you live, now and in the years ahead.

The Acre Design Difference

More than a thousand completed projects have given our architectural designers deep insight into what makes a North East home truly work. Managing Director Alistair Crerar’s building-control background ensures every design is technically robust, compliant, and ready to build.

A dedicated team of architectural designers, technicians, and support specialists brings creativity, precision, and calm organisation to every project.

Luxury house extension in Newastle designed and project managed by Acre Design's expert team of architectd and architectural designers

What our clients say

Excellent

Based on 68 reviews

3 weeks ago

I contacted Acre Design for an initial consultation about extending my property. They offered a free chat about options and were very informative and walked me through what would need to be achieved. I opted to go for their needs and options review to get some ideas about around design and they came back with a number of potential options which at our review together really helped me understand the art of the possible. As such I am going to continue working with them to move this on into full plans and delivery. They are friendly, approachable and from what I’ve seen so far - really know what they are doing.

Update Jan 2026 - Rowena at Acre Design has been supporting me in the next stages of my planned extension. She has been extremely supportive and has advised me throughout on planning permission, party wall agreements and budget. She has taken my ideas and with her colleagues created a 3D visual of what my new home could look like and it's wonderful. Plans have been drawn up quickly but with precision. The whole team are very responsive, helpful and friendly. Would recommend you give them a call if you are looking for works on your home.

Phil G

2 months ago

We have used Acre Design to help us with planning an extension. Communication has been excellent and all our queries have been dealt with efficiently. They have kept us fully engaged with the process and are looking forward to completing our project with them.

Steve

3 months ago

We have gone through the first stages of Acre’s planning model, which consisted of the initial call from Alister to assess if Acre would be the correct architect to help with our project.
We have since followed the ‘needs and options review’ which gave us plenty of opportunities to share with acre what we would be looking for in our project plans, sharing ideas, possible layouts and then most importantly in the close-out meeting, plenty time to discuss options and ideas of what maybe possible.
Acre has been very prompt and professional at each step up to now, so we have chosen to progress onto planning with them.

Sarah Sharp

3 months ago

Stephen Potter

3 months ago

We've just passed planning, and it has been a true pleasure working with Acre Design so far. We're a large household and struggled to develop a viable solution on our own. Acre Design excelled in accommodating our unique needs and presented ideas we would have never thought of. They exceeded our expectations throughout, and their high standard design allowed us to sail through planning. They run a smooth operation and are always professional, but also very approachable. They kept us grounded during the design phase to ensure the budget remained on track and we're really excited to work with them further to bring the vision to life

Noah Whenray

6 months ago

Alistair and his team have been fantastic. We have started with the needs and options review. This is something we didn’t know we needed. Now we have come to end of it we can fully understand why it’s so important. We have been dealing with Alistair mostly and you can tell he is very passionate and wants provide the best possible outcome for his clients. We are looking forward to the next steps!

Richard Saxton

8 months ago

We've had a fantastic experience working with acre design. From the start, they really took the time to understand what we were after and came up with some amazing ideas.

The whole process has been smooth and stress-free — they were easy to talk to, quick to respond to any questions, and genuinely seemed to care about getting everything just right. The final design is not only exactly what we wanted, but better!

We’d definitely recommend them to anyone thinking about an extension or renovation.

David Holden

10 months ago

We have been working with Alistair and the team at Acre Design for about 6 months now on a major redesign of nearly the whole ground floor of our house. At the initial site visit, they listened carefully to how we use the house, what we saw as the positive and negative points, and what we were hoping to achieve. The resultant Needs and Options Review, together with the accompanying explainer video, was extremely helpful for us as it enabled us to look at the various scenarios devised by Acre and decide which suited us best. We would never have thought of some of them, so it broadened our thinking. Our preferred scenario was then worked up by the team into a concept design, that allowed us to see what the external look of our extensions would be. We appreciated that there was no problem in making a few revisions until we landed on a settled design. We opted for the full support package, as we realised we need help at all stages in the process to successfully see through such a wide-ranging project. Everything has been working very well so far. We are now awaiting planning permission and reviewing the technical drawings.
Alistair and the team are friendly, professional and easy to get along with. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Acre to family, friends and neighbours.

Andy Sherlaw

11 months ago

We felt we had to leave a review about the exceptional service as part of the ‘Needs and Options Review’ process. We would highly recommend Alistair and Acre Design without hesitation. We not only received a personalised video explaining several ideas, but a detailed PDF outlining the whole process. There has been incredible attention to detail, and we feel a lot of effort has gone in to planning and creating our ideal extension layout. The design ideas shared were innovative and inspiring, and it was fantastic being able to see our ideas come to life when discussing alternative options or adaptations. We’re very excited about this project with Acre and would recommend them fully.

Barrie Spence

11 months ago

We have used Acre Design on 2 occasions over the last 5 years. Each time Alistair and the team have provided valuable advice and developed innovative designs. They work quickly, effectively and are extremely responsive in developing a very comprehensive set of plans. They have provide a guiding hand to help through that tricky decision making process to produce outstanding solutions to our home extension.
Thank you.
Barrie and Christine in Beamish.

Ready to plan your House Extension or Renovation?

Your home deserves architectural expertise that protects your investment and brings your ideas to life with clarity and care. A Needs and Options Review is your personalised roadmap to the home you have worked hard to achieve.

Book Your Needs & Options Review (£700 + VAT)

Contact Acre Design

CAI Building, Royal Quays,
North Shields, NE29 6DE

T: 0191 6808 088
E: [email protected]