Architects Love: Building exactly what is on the drawings. Of course there’s different ways of building something, but changing what has been designed/approved is terrible. It undermines years worth of thought, research, approvals, etc that the client and architect solidified together. The thing we designed corresponds with codes, budgets, views, waterproofing, aesthetics, client goals, etc. Changing it is like stealing years worth of time from a client. It is essentially taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from a client and giving them something they did not pay for. It is so rewarding when the builder builds it the way it was actually intended.
Architects Love: Non-coplanar surfaces. What does this mean? Coplanar means two surfaces (planes) that align with each other. They are flush with each other. We commonly design different objects that intentionally look different from one another, so we intentionally offset them from one another to accentuate the contrast. All too often, we see builders “flattening” buildings. They take two different siding materials that were supposed to “bump-out” from one another, and they dumb it down and make it flat. Imagine cutting a hole in your button-down shirt and sewing a necktie in its place as a patch of sorts. The tie is flush with the shirt. This is not good, but we see it in buildings ALL the time. It looks so much better when different materials stack on one another rather than to be flat and flush with each other. That would be funny to sew a tie flush with a shirt though! Less funny for a building.
Architects Love: Hatin’ on building departments. To become an architect, you are inevitably highly trained. Building departments commonly will use stall tactics to prevent the issuance of permits for their own benefit to achieve two goals: 1. Generate higher permit fees, and 2. Prevent themselves from doing their job. Of course nobody will admit these things. Building plans reviewers will cite irrelevant codes or policies to stop the process of reviewing drawings (like claiming drywall is a dominant structural component), and this causes the architect to need to intervene to “clarify” and put them back on track (with a lot of arguing to get there). They don’t have interest in making good buildings. They often rely on irrelevant codes to make their own job easier. When people get into a rant about challenges they have had with building departments, architects LOVE to jump in and commiserate with them:)
Architects Love: Clients who trust our judgment. Sometimes clients hire us, and tell us what to do every step of the way because they “know what’s best.” They must have magically maintained a solid GPA through 6 years of architecture school, interned with an architect for several years, passed all the state board exams with the state architectural review board, maintained an architect’s license with continued education, and racked up years of professional experience to be able to advise on every unique construction and design decision on their building. Right… more like they watched a few YouTube videos and HGTV and are now “experts.” This completely undermines the value an architect can add, and it causes clients to lose out on the creativity an architect could provide. Imagine getting a surgery and telling the surgeon how to sanitize their hands, which scalpel to use, how to make the cut, and how to stitch it up. That wouldn’t work. It doesn’t work with the design of buildings either. There’s more specialized knowledge than can be explained (without going through the entire learning experience that an architect goes through). It is so rewarding, and projects succeed immensely when clients instill their trust in the architect.
Architects Love: HGTV. Just kidding. We despise HGTV. This is not real at all. Nothing about it happens in the architecture profession. There’s design time. There’s permitting. Construction costs $300 per square foot or more. The clients don’t leave for a few days and come back to a finished project. The designer doesn’t build the project - real, talented builders do. I got asked to be on HGTV Design Star, but the contract was a joke. No real architect would agree to that. When someone references something they saw on HGTV, I tune out and think of something more productive that will help their project.
Architects Love: Including the architect during construction. The easiest way to guarantee a disaster on your project is to put the decisions of saving time, saving money, specifying the best way to build something, structural safety calculations, and determining code requirements all in the hands of a builder. The architect knows everything about your project and actually has substantial training on all of these factors. It makes a lot of sense to keep the architect on board during the construction to ensure you get the best project for the best price. The architect is the best asset to the builder and client during construction.
If you’d like to learn more about our design process, visit www.josharch.com/process, and if you’d like to get us started on your project with a feasibility report, please visit www.josharch.com/help