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Today I want to tackle one of those questions that every client asks as a project moves toward construction ...
Q: Why employ an architect for construction
support during construction of our home?
It's a question I’m
often asked, and it’s one that every home owner should be asking the designer of their new home: why the hell
should we be paying you to visit our new place during construction?
A very fair question.
Let’s see if I can answer it.
1. Because every new home has
many enemies
There are several
levels of construction support, and man things it might be called, but the
first and very simple reason to employ your designer to make regular site visits
this: to make sure that your new home is built as you’ve had it designed. You
(the owners) and your designer have spent many hours getting everything about
your new place just right – getting each and every detail just the way you want
it, to make it just the house that you want. And it’s very easy (frighteningly
easy) to muck up many of those things during construction – for you or your
builder to do “small” things onsite that may have big implications for all those
big things you really want; or for you or your builder to be persuaded by a building
inspector or an engineer that things will have to be changed.
And every change may
have an unexpected impact. Change a door swing and a whole room may become a
place nobody wants to be. Remove too much wall in a renovation (or too little)
and you end up with spaces not flowing (or embracing you) the way they really
should. Alter a window and a space may not get the sun that makes it work. Add
a thicker layer of tiles and you suddenly discover your new stair no longer
works. Change a flashing material at an upper level and you may affect the corrosion
profile of all materials below it. Install a different lighting system and you
may end up repelling guests rather than welcoming them in. Even removing a tree
that your designer has relied on can end up in bringing in more sun than you
want – or end up in you and your neighbour seeing far more of each other than
you’d ever really intended!
Your builder won’t
necessarily see these things – nor will he necessarily identify, say, the
foundation or locational problems that might emerge from a slight change in,
say, the position of a post – and your engineer or building inspector will not
even be interested – but there is nobody better placed than the designer to do
it, and he can only do it properly if he’s on site to sniff them out.
2. Because every change has unexpected
implications
You see, it’s your
designer’s job to be your eyes and ears on site, to sniff out all the
implications of any changes you or your builder may suggest, or may
inadvertently make.
Your designer will not
be opposed to making changes – once a building project is under way, it’s then
that many improvements can be very easily seen, and made – but it is his job to
ensure that changes made are necessary
changes (how many clients have been
gulled by builders/engineers/inspectors or just folk they meet at dinner
parties to do things that are utterly unnecessary and often very pricy). And
also that you do understand the full
implications of any changes you do propose (implications on both your
wallet and on the way the house will work for you) before you authorise the
go-ahead. Not to be negative about any changes proposed, but to let you decide what
is more important to you – the thing
proposed, or the thing that change may rule out.
3. Because your builder will have
many questions
At the very beginning
of a building project, and at the beginning of every stage thereafter, the
person who has most thought it through and will understand it is the person who
has drawn it up in the first place. So even if neither you nor your builder nor
anyone of the grey ones has proposed any changes, your builder will undoubtedly
have many questions that, in being answered, can save him an awful lot of time
(and you an awful lot of money).
And there is no better
person to answer those questions, or make time- or labour-saving suggestions,
than the building’s designer who has thought through the whole process, and then
watched the building being erected from the ground up.
Because it’s important
to understand that every new-build is in
essence a prototype – a one-off – and if it weren’t, then there would be
few reasons to have engaged a designer in the first place! (And it’s an old
saying that every builder likes building things that he’s already built
before.)
So, being a one-off, that
will mean the design will almost certainly contain things your builder will not
have considered before, or considered doing that way before. And if he doesn’t ask
those questions out loud, you can be sure he’ll be asking them in his head.
Much better if he has
those questions answered before they appear in unexpected ways in his bill, or in
your house!
4. Because every new-build is a
prototype
The other very good
reason to employ your designer on site during construction is because of this
very reason: that every new piece of architecture is a prototype. It’s never
existed before on this earth, and so, even if your builder has no immediate
questions then, like every new thing as it’s brought into being, there will be
unexpected things occurring from time to time.
This is the very
reason that prototypes are made! To sniff out anything unexpected before you go
into mass production.
Now, your new home is
not going into mass production, but it is still very much a prototype in the
sense that it’s a one-off that’s never been built before, and just as a
prototype for mass production is built in order to discover anything unexpected
about the product, we should (with every new-build) almost expect that
unexpected things are going to occur.
It’s best when those
unexpected things are called to everyone’s attention that the designer be there
to help think through the best response. And he can do that best if he’s been
there every step of the way first, so he thoroughly understands all that’s gone
before, and all the cost implications of the decision(s).
Because one of the important
implications of this is that if you do ring your designer when the unexpected
occurs, then if he hasn’t been part of the process up to that stage then he will
need time to try to come up to speed (because he won’t know all that’s happened
before this, and he will no longer have been focussed on the project), and you
will then generally have to pay him by the hour for any work he does at this
stage rather than have it covered by your agreed weekly/monthly/fortnightly
rate, which will often end up cheaper, and will almost certainly allow him a
fuller grasp of the issue in question.
4. Because having your designer on site
regularly affords him the fullest focus on your job
Ring your designer out
of the blue when you’re halfway through your job, and he or she hasn't been involved onsite thus far, and they will have to take their head away from the projects on which they're presently focussed, and wonder where they've stored your plans. In other words, you won’t have their fullest focus, and they can't do their best work for you. And you
won’t have that unless you've actually employed them to maintain that focus.
5. Because having your designer regularly on site makes them part of the command structure
And another thing ... if your designer is not on site regularly and then you ask him to just show up out of the blue (which I guarantee will happen at least once on every project), what builder (or tradie, or QS, or site engineer) is likely to take them seriously? You've shown by not employing them yourself to provide regular construction support that you don't value that input, so why should they? And without that regular opportunity to be part of the command structure on site -- to share conversations about job progress and proposals; to vet quotes and payments; to run or attend regular site meetings; to issue variation orders when necessary -- there is no opportunity for your designer to gain that respect that can often, when the moment might arise, spread much-needed oil over unexpectedly troubling waters.
6. Because regular payments are generally more
affordable for you, in the long run, than most of the alternatives
Because the thing is,
there are many reasons why you should and will need to employ your designer
during the construction stage – even if it’s just to draw up the now mandatory “as-built”
drawings that council demand at the end of every job (something easy to do with
regular site visits, but frustratingly hard without) – so in many ways the
decision is really this:
will we be
paying our designer an hourly rate every time we call him (which may discourage
you making that important call?
Or:
should
we pay him a regular weekly/fortnightly/monthly rate for him to keep our
interests uppermost?
For my own part, as a
one- or two-person office, I much prefer having that regular engagement on site
that keeps me personally involved with the project, and being there regularly to support
the builder and owner. (And it’s much less stressful for everyone involved when
I’m suddenly involved in a project about which I’m by then somewhat unfamiliar,
and with tradesmen who I’ve never met.) For most medium-sized projects, unless
there is something particularly challenging, then one or two hours a week, or a
fortnight, seems to work well for both me and my clients, and for their builders.
Some weeks there will be more, and some less, but it generally evens out and (a
little like how insurance can cover the unexpected) when or if there is much
more work to be done, then those regular payments will generally absorb the
work required.
Conclusion
So why should you employ
your designer during your building project? Here's the short summary:
· Because even if you know how to build, no-one
will know your new building better than your designer
· Because you will want to build the place you’ve
had designed, not inadvertently build something different
· Because even if you do decide to build it
differently, you will want to know that you are aware of the fullest implications
of that difference
· Because when you build something that’s never
been built before (or built in this way before) then the builder is going to have
questions
· Because when you build something that’s never
been built before (or built in this way before) you need to expect the
unexpected
· Because when you build something that’s never
been built before (or built in this way before) then you will want your designer’s
fullest focus when you or your builder do call with questions.
B Because making your designer part of the command structure affords them the respect they deserve.
· Because it’s easier for everyone to have an
expected regular outgoing than an unexpected and reluctantly-paid hourly rate.
I hope that's helped to answer the question for you.
Leave questions in the comments if you have more.
