Architect management

[Girlfiend]

Any tips? I feel as if my architect 'pretends' to accommodate me but in reality just tries to manipulate things to be as he thinks best. Ideally, I would like him to comeup with some completely different ideas for the ground floor. However we paid him for this part of the project a year ago and the builders have almost finished with the top two floors.

His ideas may well be best but I am not convinced. The problem is I am not a particularly forceful or decisive character. I expected the architect would have worked with me creatively trying to solve problems and accommodate my 'foolish' 'tasteless' desires as best he can within reason.

I am sad about this as we are spending our entire life savings on this house refurb. My Dh is paying for it but does not have time to be involved.

sounds like you have the wrong architect, but clearly you cant change that now. architects rarely understand how houses work best for families but if you arent getting a design that works for then you will have to be more forceful i am afraid.

being indecisive really doesnt help at all. work out what you want and stick to your guns, but if you havent worked out what you want then you are kind of playing into his hands. he's not a mind reader, after all.

Hi - what I would recommend is that you work on a brief to give to the architect, which will set out what you want from the project. You can split this into essentials and nice-to-haves if that would work for you. Get input from your dh with this too if you can, so you can both sit down and work out what you are actually aiming for and want to achieve with the project. The architect will then clearly see what is non-negotiable with you, what there might be leeway on and what isn't important, and he can work his design around these parameters.

If you look at the RIBA stages of work, I would have expected him to sit down and go through this process with you early in the project, but better late than never.

Then, if you have any issues later on, it's relatively simple to refer him back to the brief, and it will also help you keep focus on what are the important objectives here.

I would also ask for samples for you to approve for the finishes and make sure you see a good physical sample rather than a picture in a brochure so you can make a proper judgement in terms of colour, quality etc.

Hope this helps!

I feel your pain. Also have an architect who I feel isn't acting on my behalf right at the moment - in fact the way they have handled our questions on the tender doc may almost have lost us the contractor. Just wanted to say it's really bloody annoying!

If you have a good builder already on board - do you really need teh architect for this last part of the work?

"isn't acting on our behalf".... That is the perfect way of putting it Betterwhenthesunshines, thank you. All the guidance notes and meetings count for little when his default mode is to serve his own needs first. I suspect that he isn't an out n out CAD (forgive pun) but conveniently deludes himself about his true motivations.

I cannot work with the builder alone because he is the architect's regular builder.

You need to sit down with your DH and work out exactly what you want from your downstair. Write it down. Write down what is wrong with what your architect has done so far. Tbh it's harder & more costly to rectify the longer you leave it. If you are still changing your mind once building has started then I have a little sympathy for your architect but he should be listening to and acting on what you are saying that is his role. Make sure he is upfront about any costs related to changes (because at this late stage I would expect there to be some, however he must tell you what they are and why they are being charged)
TBH generally working on domestic architecture is harder than it should be because people can be indecisive and don't understand that changing your mind or not fixing stuff at the start can be expensive in both build and professional fees.... Although many people expect continual changes for free .
It sounds like your architect isn't listening to you (which is poor practice) and you aren't being forceful enough (which let's him get away with it). Unfortunately your gonna have to sit down and tell him clearly why you are not happy, what you want him to do about it and set parameters for him to work within (we are ideas people with lots of knowledge but we are not mind readers... I've heard of many situations where clients say architect is not listening when they've actually not told the architect what they want) keep paper records & notes of all conversations as this covers you and makes it easier to say " well actually as you'll see we've already discussed this"
I don't agree that most architects don't understand how families and houses work... I think some don't (and should be told to bugger off in the beginning) but also I think a lot of clients are wooly about what they want, the architect should help firm this up before they start but people often press on with their projects anyway.
When commissioning an architect you should look at their portfolio & meet them. Then go with your gut feeling as to whether their style & manner is somebody you can work with. Different people suit different architects.

Sorry for the monster post. And btw if he's being an arrogant twat (yes architecture like all jobs has some of those) you need to tell him that he is but try to deconstruct it into why he is being a twat - not listening etc. Rather than just a rant it's more constructive that way.

I also found it helps to write an email (with no adress in the box so you can't send it accidently )saying EXACTLY how you feel - rants and all. Print a copy for yourself and then go back and edit it so it's constructive rather than inflamatory. I also write a scipt for myslef for telephone conversations so I don't forget anything, I choose my phrases carefully too so I don't say anything I later regret.

It's definitely worth a review of your downstairs plan - but are you hoping for the impossible - eg in our plan we have a utility room in a rather lovey location which I feel is a waste - it could be a study, but there genuinely isn't another place it could go would compromisin the size of the dining area, which I don't want to do. It's not perfect, but it is (probably) the best it can be in the circumstances.

Architect's are not designers unless you had a fab one.
my sister had one and paid alot of money for it, asked my dh to look at her kitchen and within seconds he moved a stud wall to give her what she wanted rather than what the Architect said should be....
Stick to what you want as its your house and at the end of the day your paying his bill so if he doesnt listen remind him who's paying who and state what you want/require and thoughts as its your house

Am really surprised by some of the comments on this thread re. what an architect is and isn't supposed to be good at - eg. "architects rarely understand how houses work best for families" and "architects are not designers".

I hope I don't find myself saying otherwise when we're at the other end of our project (we've just submitted planning application so have had the original designs done), but these are exactly the things I expect - and am paying through the nose for! - from my architect!

OP - I agree with the advice you've had here, and you have my utmost sympathies - I know that feeling of this being your 'one shot' with all the money you have to get things right. You need to sit down with him and reinforce that sentiment - this house HAS to work for you and your family and your considerations must be taken into account. You could always seek a second opinion from another architect, even if you have to pay for an hour of their time, to back you up and give you the confidence that your ideas are viable.

Without knowing the exact ins and outs of your situation it difficult to know where on the spectrum of possible scenarios you lie.

At one end you may indeed have an architect who wants to give you his usual offering or latest groovy idea without really listening to what you want. This is fairly common to the point that large institutional clients employ teams of architects and surveyors to check that they are getting what they asked for!

On the other hand you may well have asked for specific things but maybe your architect knows that you can't afford it or there are technical reasons why your requests cannot be met in full. For instance could your thoughts on this layout perhaps have come after/during tender and affect the price of the work or involve structural work difficult to do without ruining the new upstairs?

In practice you may be somewhere between the two.

However you also may be suffering from building work fatigue! You sound like you have already had a lot done and it is quite normal for tempers to be fraying at this point. Building work is tedious enough without thinking that it will be less than perfect at the end! Keep calm and keep talking if you want it finished sooner rather than later.

I think that you should ignore the people who say that you should dump the architect and go it alone. It will only drag things out - assuming that you think he and the builder have done well with the work nearing completion?

Architects are professionals not just draughtspeople. They do have to listen to you but they shouldn't always just draw exactly what you say without question. So as people above have said just state your thoughts calmly and clearly. If that doesn't work then maybe come back for advice on more drastic action.

Good luck!

"... Architect's are not designers unless you had a fab one ...

I agree with ladymuckbeth [hmmm] at that comment.

As an architect, I suspect that annalouiseh "architect" was nothing of the sort.

I second Pendeen's

Indeed Pendeen. Our architect will be designing down to and including such features as the choice of tile, placement of cupboards/sinks etc and maybe we're lucky but the overriding sense I get from her is that she is primarily focused on making this entire project work for our specific needs. She has been over to our house several times to get a feel for how we work as a family and has been keen to come up with design ideas which make us as enthusiastic about it as she is.

I would be gutted to be in the OPs position - it is certainly not 'what one should expect' when dealing with an architect, I feel.

Yup, thats about right.

Some architects are so engrossed in their vision of what you should live like they dont listen their drawings arr needs. Often their drawing and ideas are also complitely off the track of what is possible, and usually blame the contractor.

We have been in the situations when the architect was alwast forcing ideas on the client and we saw it (as a cabinet makers we were contractors), therefore we were trying to help the client voice her opinions more often and direct questions to her during meetings - simply to establish that she's the one who's going to live in the house, and her feelings are the most important.

it is a diffcult balance, but as a business we need to do well by the client, architects often are not needed once you have idea of what you want to do.

If you have good builders they will be able to design what you want for you.

Also as a cabinet making business we design for clients as well, it is a much easier process, as they can always call us directly and there is no second guessing what really was said or agreed on. Also we find that clients are happier dealing directly with businesses rather than architects who then deal with contrcators. There is too much ego massaging going on.

sorry about some mistakes in the message above, my keyboard keeps skipping cursor in the oddest places.

We've had similar problems with our architect and we haven't got to the building stage yet. Even with written notes of our meetings (and in one case even when we handed him a design (on paper and CAD software) for one part) he has ignored what we actually would like and given us what he thinks we should have. We have not changed our minds at any point - we are not messing him around but once he has drawn something he doesn't want to spend time changing it. At one point (after we had planning permission) we reached stalemate where we stopped the process because what he was giving us plans for would just not work for us. We picked up again a year later after a meeting 'to re-align' what we wanted, only for him to do much the same again. Have now gone out to tender with a spec which has errors in, which he acknowledges is wrong but 'let's leave it in because it's more expensive than what you really want - we can change it later'.

We are not happy. From what I can see all he wants is as large a cost as possible back from the tendering process as his fee is 11% of that amount. We will then be left with builders who have a huge scope of works document to follow when parts of it are incorrect. Dh and I do not have the time to supervise builders everyday to point out that the electrics plan is wrong or that the route of the plumbing shouldn't be as per the plans (can't be as per the plans as there are joists in the way anyway - we pointed it out to architect and found alternatives that work, he left it in anyway).
One of the reasons we went with a local architect is that we wanted someone else to project manage - but since we cannot trust him to help the builders build what we want (much less complicated than his ideas), we are now unable to use him for this stage (although I bet he'll want paying for it anyway).
Much sympathies to you OP, we will never use an independent architect again.

Have just gone through something similar. Happy with the design ( although it has taken a year - yup - since we got PP through for them to get the plans ready to go out to tender. There is a lot of detail, but some things left - "well, we can discuss that detail later / check with the contractor etc. Tenders came back as lump sum figures and we have just had a very difficult 2 weeks where we try and ask if there are any material changes we can make in order to save some costs, and he has made it very clear he doesn't want to amend anything, or even discuss it with the builder. He never instructed the builder he was the preferred bidder so he has anow accpeted anothe job which will further delay our start date. Basically he has made me feel a complete fool for asking some questions. And then he called us up and said he couldn't carry the job on. What!! After we've put up with his time wasting over the last year because of his other work commitments.

ANyway, good riddance I say (after the shock). The builder is happy, we are finder another contract administrator and hopefully it will all be a lot more straightforward from now on. No more huffy fits that I ask him to change the nasty retro 70's looking front door etc. Looking for silver linings! :)

"... Much sympathies to you OP, we will never use an independent architect again. ..."

I entirely sympathise with those who have had a bad experience of using an architect - several very embarrasing tales on here.

I can only say that we are not all like that (honest) and if you are really unhappy then please complain to the RIBA (and maybe ARB as well) because they will only carry on with their unhelpful attitude thus giving the rest of us a bad name.

Hi. Me again. I am Girlfiend the opening poster but I have forgotten my details!

Anyway things have got Much much worse since my posting in January

The architect never produced minutes for meetings, nor did he ever provide written project budgets or projected costs when asked. So our first big shock came when we incurred £40k + of design and build fees for cupboards that we thought were included in the main contract.

Our next horror was when the architect approved the builder's requested 11 weeks extra time £16k for several items which caused him undue delay. Only one of which was to do with our requested alteration the others, strucural issues, we couldn't argue with. The point here is that we had signed a Fixed Contract. The job was supposed to be finished in a certain time, for a certain fee whatever happened.

By this time, of course, we are aware that we are dealing with a couple of shysters and have insisted on everything being in writing; all financial info requested to be provided etc. But it was a bit like closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. It is also only partially effective because arcitect has all the experience, jargon, contractual knowledge on her side). They can still run rings around us.

But, there is another pony in that there stable. Can you (architects, lawyers, QS's) help me save it. And save myself some money / illness too.

A few weeks ago the architect gave me an updated list of budgetary 'extras' which casually made mention of a new 'agreed completion date'.

No such agreement was ever made so I enquired about it - assuming a mistake. No. It was intentional. The architect was trying to transform a written enquiry about my moving dates (an email i sent in january) into a verbal discussion in which I agreed that the builders could take another 4 weeks (on top of the 11 extra weeks we had already verbally approved).

Of course, had such an agreement actuallt been made, then the builder would not have to pay us the £1000 weekly damages due in respect of any overrrun. Instead we'd have to pay them both even moreweekly fees.

Enough is enough. What can we do? The contract deadline is the end of month and though it is obvious it will overrun the builder has not yet requested a formal Extension of Time.

I am meeting arcitect next week to ask whay she intends to do if builder overruns and also to clarify what haapens in the final account process. There are so many adds and omits to negotiate and also some confusion about attendance fees in contract (kitchen) and ex contract like carpets

What do I do. She is obviously going to try some Nonsense but what I cannot predict. We are almost out of money so expensive lawyers not an option.

I am also ill following surgery this week. What do I do????

First off, have you actually instructed changes? The big risk in any building contract is where the design changes during the course of the works or where the employer / architect is slow in responding to contractor queries. If you have been slow in responding to contractor queries or have made lots of late changes then I'm afraid that the contractor is indeed likely to be entitled to more time / money. The best way to avoid this is to get the design as complete as possible before appointing the contractor (even tedious stuff like the location of plug sockets).

Your architect has a duty to act indepedently when deciding on matters like extensions of time or valuing variations, so don't expect the architect to be on "your side" necessarily, although your architect ought to be protecting your position.

In my experience contractors do try it on. The key thing for your architect to bear in mind is that the contractor only gets an extension of time if the delay event (be it really bad weather, a delayed decision or design change) is actually the cause of the delay. Given the number of parallel activites on a typical building project, finding out what is actually critical to completion can be a nightmare, and there is a whole profession of very expensive forensic delay analysts that deal with these things on high value projects.

Your architect should be challenging the contractor to prove that the delay event has actually delayed the project. It may well be that another activity is in fact critical to completion that the contractor is responsible for. Also remember that, if the contractor needs a decision from you (e.g. selection of cupboard doors) then he should raise the issue sufficiently far in advance for you (a) to make your decision and (b) for him to actually order the stuff and get it on site, particularly if items are likely to have a long lead time. If he has been delayed by a design decision and that decision was given in a timely manner, chances are that he asked the question too late.

On a large project you would expect the contractor to provide a programme for the works and to keep this updated. However, I suspect that this would be overkill for a domestic project. Nonetheless, the architect should have an idea from the contractor of what remains to be done and how those activities are logically linked.

One way that you can help yourself (although it may be too late now) is to keep a daily record of what is going on on site. This record can be invaluable for working out what was occupying the contractor at any stage in the project and can be useful in rebutting claims as to the cause of delays.

As a rule of thumb, even a very well run routine commercial development will typically need a contingency of 10-15% for variations and unforeseen site conditions.

My previous long response was not posted! You were spared.

In short; we initiated one change, an enlargement to the basement pendinf planning permission. If the bigger basement was not approved then we did not intend to dig any basement at all.

This alteration was known before we commenced the project so contractors were asked to identify basement costs seperately, which they did.

10 weeks after the build commenced the planning permission for the enlarged basement was granted. That was June, excavation commenced in July.

In October, after several months of asking, the architect presented an unsigned, undated statement from the builder explaining why he would be 11 weeks overtime.

After several more weeks of asking we finally got a breakdown of the 16k costs related to this and other unforeseen 'extras'.

We couldn't really argue with it but annoyed we didn't get the information upfront as required.

We started to demand everything in writing and in advance wherever possible.

It was therefore alarming to discover that a 'new completion date' had appeared in one of tje architrcts rare written documents - without warning or discussion.

Even more alarming, when I asked the architect about this he initially insisted that I had discussed and agreed the new completion date in a meeting with the builder present! He soon retracted that but it was my final lesson - we are dealing with highly immoral, corrupt, negligent professional conduct, so:

How do I get my house back and get throught the Final Account process with wasting any more money on these shysters.

The builder / architect are holding most of the cards at present as they are cooperating closely and understand the construction process and loopholes in our contract