I’m a recovering architect, having practiced architecture for almost 20 years before I started my development and project management practice. Now I hire architects. My job has been to understand the roles and responsibilities of architects and manage their work.
In my post Building Your Project Team, I summarize the qualities that I think are most important in selecting an architect and I want to expand on some of those points.
- You can divide architects, and people in general, into two groups, pleasure seekers and pain avoiders. If you are responsible for a non-profit with a construction project you probably have to be a pain avoider, only occasionally dipping a toe into pleasure seeking. And that’s the kind of architect and project team you ought to assemble. That doesn’t mean that your architect can’t be creative making interesting and beautiful environments, but they primarily have to get the job done without breaking the bank. That’s what you are looking for.
- You’re also looking for a team that listens more to what you have to say than tells you what they’ve done. You’ll see that in their proposals and what they talk about in interviews. Pay attention to this. There is an interesting dynamic. You want your architect to exercise their creative skills, but only after they have tried to figure out what your vision is and then apply those tasks to that vision, not their vision.
- You want to assemble a team that you, especially those with day-to-day responsibility for the project, will feel comfortable working with. This is very personal and I’ve noticed the diversity of what constitutes comfort among my clients. Is it safety? Is it a personal connection? Try to focus on what makes you comfortable.
- Then there’s exqusite technical expertise. If your architect doesn’t have that, you’re entering a challenging arena of risk. And that need for expertise includes all of their engineering consultants. Poor performance by a structural engineer can be as disasterous as if it were the architect. You may need help evaluating this among candidates. Your project manager’s advice and careful checking of references will help.
- You shouldn’t rely on your architect to be the primary leader in budget management. While architects may participate in managing the construction budget and even sometimes preparing construction cost estimates, they don’t generally participate in managing the rest of expenditures related to the project which may 25% or more of the total project cost.
Finally, I want to provide some insight into the owner/architect relationship, from the often delightful design process to the sometimes challenging construction process and beyond.
Good architects are essential to a successful project. They are often wonderfully creative and endlessly clever, and should be the diligent driver of the design team.
Architects can be transformative, taking a jumble of ideas and, and like a Macgyver, craft them into something better than anyone ever expected. I remember early in one project, after a design meeting, our client said, “These meetings are the best hour I have all week.”
But at some point, that relationship may start to change. There is an inflection point where those meetings with your architect are more about challenges with the budget and schedule. There may be requests for additional fees. Planning approvals or the building permit process may drag on. There may still be those golden design presentations but they start to receed. That work is done.
Once construction begins, there is a steady stream of questions from the contractor. The drawings are not clear or complete, there are coordination problems, details cannot be built, issues need to be resolved more quickly. All of these issues can lead to change orders for more cost or delay in completion. None of these meetings is as enjoyable as an early design meeting, but it’s all completely necessary and normal.
You may start to think your architect is failing you. That’s generally not true. It’s just a change in focus.
Many of these issues are an unavoidable, part of the process:
- Unforseen conditions always arise. The earlier they are known the better, but in some cases, early investigation in occupied buildings is constrained.
- There is always cost pressure; the architect is trying to include as much of your needs in the project as possible. They tend to be pleasers, not stern parents. However as long as there is a strategy to land on just the right scope once construction starts, all the anxiety is worth it. See my post, Under Promise Over Deliver, Expectation Management
- The schedule depends on a lot of actors outside the design team, including the owner. A well crafted proactive schedule helps anticipate those delays that always arise.
- Local planning and building departments are a law unto themselves. A good team has a solid relationship with these agencies but even with that, problems may arise.
- And of course, architects make mistakes. Construction has become more and more complicated and perfection isn’t possible. There are ranges of cost and schedule changes that one might consider normal, predictable.
So what are some antidotes, remedial actions?
- Excellent and complete construction documents are your best defense. It is a mistake to rush the process at the end. Include some time in the schedule. Reviews by your project manager and contractor are important and it may sometimes be useful to commission an outside third party plan check.
- Your project manager should create a collaborative problem solving process with the contractor, resolving problems in a fair and timely manner. It can feel hard to accept changes but when warranted, it’s best to accept them and move on. A combative relationship on site never favors the owner.
- The problems in front of your team can’t distract you from being proactive anticipating problems before they become critical.
- And finally, you need an adequate construction contingency for your project. If you go to the Table of Contents, you will find multiple posts on contingency. Dealing with added costs is always hard but much less so when you have allocated funds to cover those costs.
But sometimes you must face that these costs exceed your contingency and the level of problems with the constrution documents seems excessive or responsiveness by the design team is delaying the process. You must take effective proactive action to deal with this. I’ll discuss this in more detail in a later posts, but remember, the architect is on your side, protecting you from contractor claims. Even though you may be disappointed by their performance, you need to support them in getting to the end of the project.