About
A residential design and engineering office, working across the Bay Area.
Permit drawings and structural design under one licence, for the kind of project most homeowners actually build.
What this office is
TradeStudio, Inc. prepares the drawings and the structural design for ADUs, junior ADUs, garage conversions, additions and remodels. One office, one set, stamped under a California Professional Engineer licence, civil.
Most residential projects of this size are drawn by one party and engineered by another, and the coordination between the two is where a large share of correction letters come from. Doing both means the structure is designed while the plan can still move, and the two halves of the set cannot disagree with each other because they were never separate.
Where the line falls, and why it matters to your fee
For a single family dwelling of woodframe construction not more than two storeys and a basement, for buildings of up to four dwelling units on the same basis, and for garages appurtenant to them, the Architects Act and the Engineers Act both state that they do not prohibit any person from preparing the plans.
So for the house, the ADU, the junior ADU and the garage, no architect's licence is required to prepare them. That is the statute rather than a loophole, and it is the reason a residential permit set of this size does not have to carry an architect's fee.
The other half of the same law is why an engineer is usually not optional. That is set out here, with the sections quoted.
Said plainly
This practice does not offer architectural services and does not hold an architect's licence. Work that requires an architect's licence is referred to a licensed architect, and you are told before it is sent.
Licence
California Professional Engineer
Civil, status clear, expires
2027-09-30.
Read from the California DCA public licence register, read 21 August 2026.
Service area
Santa Clara and Alameda counties, and adjacent San Mateo, Contra Costa and San Francisco.
How the work is checked
A written 35-point review on every set before it is submitted.
The numbers, and where each one comes from
Read out of the rulebook, not written by hand.
The figures below are pulled from the same files the review itself uses, by the script that builds this page. If a source is missing the build fails rather than printing a plausible number.
The boundary
What we take on, and what we do not.
Yes
- ADUs, junior ADUs, garage conversions, additions and remodels
- Structural design and stamped calculations under a California PE licence
- Plan review of a set, whoever drew it
- Correction letter response and resubmittal
No
- Commercial work, and residential work past four units or past two storeys and a basement
- Construction. We design and document, we do not build
- Anything that needs an architect's licence, which is referred out
- Promises about how long your city will take
Already have drawings?
Upload your plans and find the problems before the city does.
We read your set against 35 written checks and tell you what a reviewer is going to raise, with the code section behind each one. It does not matter who drew it.