What does your architect actually do?
A 5-step design process primer so you know what you should expect.
So you’re ready to start the design process. You have a good sense of the value you can realize during this phase – assurance you’ll get the lifestyle you want, the confidence of working with a trusted expert, and the realization that their fee is practically paid for by the efficiencies of having an open bidding process.
But what is the actual process you’ll follow? When do you see what the building will look like? When do you make each decision? Lack of clarity over these questions leads to most owner-architect challenges. While architects are generally pretty good at designing buildings, they’re not always the best at laying out a clear process that you’ll follow, and giving you a road map for your expectations.
Because of that, we’ve re-packaged the traditional design process into a way that’s easiest for out residential clients to relate. Regardless of whether your project warrants an architect, an interior designer, or a contractor and a napkin sketch, your path will follow this general order. At times steps are skimmed over – or skipped completely. Our explanation below explains what steps are taken at each phase, and the cost implications of skimping – or skipping it.
You can still get a building – even a pretty good building – without following this process. But you assurance level – and likely mental health – will likely be lower, and you probably won’t fully maximize the potential the project had for your lifestyle.
Below we’ll go over how we systematically and consistently run clients through these five stages of the design process:
STEP 1: LIFESTYLE DISCOVERY
We dig in deep into how you want to live, so we can simply state what you want to get out of your home.
STEP 2: PRELIMINARY DESIGN
We translate your lifestyle goals into architecture, so you can see how your house is going to look and work.
STEP 3: DETAILED DESIGN
We work with you to develop the right amount of detail to explain exactly how you’re going to achieve the house of your dreams.
STEP 4: CONSTRUCTION COACHING
We want you to be in the driver’s seat during construction. We make sure you have the information and tools you need to make great choices.
STEP 5: LIVE YOUR LIFESTYLE
You have the experience of your house supporting the way you wanted to live all along.
Step 1: Lifestyle Discovery
We dig in deep into how you want to live, so we can simply state what you want to get out of your home.
The first phase is only one meeting long. In it we go over a general overview of the process you’ll follow and have the first of many brief discussions about concepts key to your experience, such as construction, design process, and cost management. Then we spend most of the meeting going through our “Lifestyle Discovery.” This in-depth questionnaire gives you the opportunity to get everything out that we might need to know to design a home that truly fits your lifestyle – and gives us insights into your personality and goals so we can understand how best to support you.
Personal Interview
In this discovery session, we first review where you are in your life story, and what you’re seeking to achieve. This helps us ascertain what your core goals of the project are, so we make sure neither of us loses sight of that during the process. Next, we seek to understand your worldview and motivation. After this short meeting, we’ll start trying to translate your lifestyle into architecture; this level of understanding can be really helpful. After that we consider how your house interacts with your routine and leisure time and then delve deep into the spaces you want in your house – quantity as well as the more subjective qualities of them. Finally, we take a look at images that are representative about what inspires you about architecture.
If you’re the extroverted, intuitive, feeling, decisive sort who likes to manage decisions on the fly in conversation, you just need to show up, and we’ll walk you through it. But we realize a lot of us are more introverted, concrete, thinkers who ponder alternatives, so we give you some starter questions beforehand for you to review, if that’s helpful to your personal process.
Simple Summary
After the session, we give you a “mad-lib” summary. We succinctly define where you are in life, why you’re renovating, what successful outcome you’re trying to achieve, and what potential failure you’re trying to avoid. We combine this with a comprehensive program of spaces. These two become the guiding documents that we reference back to throughout the process; to make sure we are crafting a home that truly fits your lifestyle goals.
A lot of architects don’t do this sort of discovery session, for whatever reason. We believe it’s something that sets us apart. We found that if we start drawing before we have the full picture, we end up needing to make major design revisions as more of your story comes to light in successive meetings.
steps taken:
o Really understanding a client’s motivation, lifestyle, space needs, and inspiration
COSt of skipping:
o Design revisions late in process as new information comes to light
Step 2: Preliminary Design
We translate your lifestyle goals into architecture, so you can see how your house is going to look and work.
This next phase is a series of 3 meetings, roughly a week apart, and we go from first sketch to producing floor plans, elevations (exterior views), and general material selections that accurately describe the house you want to build. At the end, you have a set of documents you can get cost-verification feedback on from a general contractor (yours or ours) before finalizing the plans.
Philosophically, there are three things going on:
Clarity through sketching
We present to you pen sketches of multiple options before we create hard-lined CAD drawings, in nearly every circumstance. This lets us give you more quick iterations to react to, and you know what the heck we’re spending our time resolving on the computer. It’s a relatively efficient process, as it takes 4 to 5 times longer to do a CAD drawing than a pen-sketch, because of the level of resolution the computer needs.
Just what you never knew you wanted
The options we show you are distinctive: we show you exactly what you asked for; opportunities we see you haven’t thought of; and blue-sky ideas that, well, you never know if they’ll get traction.
We’re doing this not to entertain ourselves, but to make sure that when you make a decision, you have the assurance that you looked at every feasible solution. This can be a challenge for those of us that are quick decision makers, but there is a real value to this when you get to the point, late in the process, when you’re bound to wonder, “what if we did something different?” You can be more assured that, yes, you and your designers looked at a lot of “something different” and the option you selected stood out from the rest – and was selected based on your goals and values.
Even if the first idea is really solid, we’ve found that if we jump right into developing it, without exploring the alternatives, questions end up arising during the design process. We end up exploring aspects of those ideas while we should be resolving the design, and it muddles the clarity of the resolution of the design.
We prep you for the next step
While progressing you through your design options, we prepare you for pertinent items that you’ll need to make decisions on in the next stage. This includes your philosophy of contractor selection much of which comes down to the level of day-to-day involvement you’re comfortable with. We also work with you to help define general material selections – we run you through pros and cons of your different choices. This helps prime you for when you do need to select final finishes, and it also gives us some good general information that will aid in your preliminary pricing.
steps taken:
o Exploring alternatives to help you gain confidence in the decision you’re making
o Settle on one direction with enough information to do cost-verification
COSt of skipping:
o May end up with costly, time-consuming design options late in the process
o The existential anxiety of “What Ifs…”
Step 3: Detailed Design
We work with you to develop the right amount of detail to explain exactly how you’re going to achieve the house of your dreams.
This is the phase when every surface you’ll be building gets described in drawing, and finish selection. As you can imagine, this is the most drawing intensive phase – and the meetings don’t come in as quick succession as Preliminary Design.
Design Development
We work through as many rounds as you need to get the plans, exterior elevations, and interior elevations just what you want. It’s usually 1 to 2 rounds, but we follow your lead – no sense digging into detailing unless you’re fully satisfied.
Full Documentation
In this phase we draw every surface we need to document. In addition to the plan and exterior elevation from preliminary design, we show the ceiling with light fixtures locations, interior elevations with cabinetry, and cross-sections that show construction, rough structural plans, and general routing of your mechanical and plumbing systems. We run you through these before developing them into final documents, so you can feel fully in control of every surface of your new house.
Finish Material Selections
Around this time, we’ll work with you to finalize decisions on finish materials. We’ve found that clients are very excited about selecting finishes, fixtures, and appliances; however, they don’t always have a great grasp on the number of detailed decisions that someone (them, us, or the contractor) is going to have to make. We have two paths – clients can show us the tile, cabinet type, and particular bath fixtures they like, and we can make detailed decisions that complement those – or we show the client sample finish selections and let them mix-and-match these with particular finishes they’ve sourced on their own.
Construction Documents
After reviewing every surface and finish, we then produce final drawings. These coordinate all the decisions between drawings, include pertinent dimensions, and necessary annotations to make sure your builder (and you!) know what is needed to create the house of your dreams. We review this with you one last time before issuing.
steps taken:
o Thoroughly document each decision, so you know what you’ll end up with
o Select all your finishes before construction begins
COSt of skipping:
o You may not be happy with how your contractor may “fill in the details;” once it’s purchased or in-place, there is a high cost to change
o Selecting materials during construction is one of the most stressful activities imaginable. You often have days (hours?) to get the material on-site, and what should be a fun, empowering process is ripe with stress, anxiety, and frustration.
Step 4: Construction Advising
We want you to be in the driver’s seat during construction. We make sure you have the information and tools you need to make great choices.
This phase involves the hand-off from the Architect to the Contractor being the primary professional moving the project forward. Your role is changing from managing a creative consultant to a fabrication consultant. Preferences, pace, and personality all change, and if there is no formal continuity, the experience can be less than pleasant. Our goal in this process is to give you the tools you need to make a great transition.
We structure our services to make sure our clients have what they actually need, but it’s important to understand what’s involved.
Contractor Selection
During Detailed Design, we’ve worked with you to identify prospective contractors, and during this phase, you’ll receive multiple bids. We’ll work with you to help you select the best fit for your project, and give you the questions to ask to help ascertain if the low-bidder can actually deliver on their promise, or if the level of service provided by another bidder is more in-line with your expectations.
Permit Submission
This is a seemingly simple process, which gets very technical very quickly. The questions on the application, and questions posed by the regulatory officials can be intimidating or unnerving to even experienced clients or builders. Since we speak the language of code, we can take the lead on these items, or give you simple answers when questions arise.
Construction Kick-Off
You thought this part would never come! It’s exciting when demo and excavation start, but in the rush to get started it’s important not to overlook the most important coordination event – the Construction Kick-Off meeting. Prior to beginning construction, the Owner, Architect, and Contractor meet on-site and review drawings, schedules, and expectations. This is the most valuable quality control to ensure that design intent is appropriately handed off from architect to contractor. As you are likely aware, we don’t manage the contractor, or direct their work. We function as your advocate and advisor, giving you the tools you need to run the show.
Work-Based Meetings
Our standard service includes three to six meetings occurring after key portions of work are complete. These are tentatively scheduled at the construction kick-off meeting, with an understanding that schedules may shift due to unforeseen conditions. This allows us to budget staff time and attention, so your urgent construction questions have our top priority. When on-site, we review work installed, and go over any changes on the upcoming work. We do offer other levels of service, which can be appropriate on projects of particular size or level of client involvement.
steps taken:
o Making sure you can turn your drawings into a contractor with a permit
o Giving you the resources you need to look and feel like a seasonal contractor-manager. Your friends (and partner) are sure to be impressed.
COSt of skipping:
o You get to learn from your own mistakes.
o We can often solve construction questions with a few sentences that may leave you and your contractor spending time and money trying to resolve.
Step 5: Lifestyle Realization
You have the experience of your house supporting the way you wanted to live all along.
The dust has cleared, the final punch-list has been satisfied, and it’s time to move back in! Once the boxes are unpacked and you start moving through your space, you can expect to have moments of feeling “this is the way it’s supposed to be!”
You have the rest of your next stage in life to get to know and enjoy your new home, and we want to give you a little gift to help capture this fun life-transition. We set up a photo-shoot to capture you and your family living the life you imagined in your new home. With you permission, we can also use some of these images to show others what you were able to accomplish – and leaves you with a great memento to remember your success.