After 30+ years of marriage, my wife and I decided to tempt fate. We are going to build a house. Despite well meaning advice from friends, we march forward into a task that brings to mind a phrase about fools and angels.
The first part is easy. Easy, that is, if you ignore the financial part of it. But getting land is the easy part. My lust for land knows no bounds. I look at "Land For Sale" ads with the same interest others might view centerfolds or Gucci handbags. But with land in hand, what next?
To build a house, you need an architect. How do you pick an architect? That is a question for me that literaly drips with irony. This is my money, this is my house and this is my wife that I want to be satisfied with the process and the end result. I must pick a professional to design something that is near and dear to my heart. If there are any clients reading this, they must be smiling.
In any case, I got a book for my wife to read called"How To Work with an Architect". There was a lot of talk about communication, as you would expect. And that is the essence of any design process. Those of us who want to build things know how to use them, in this case, we know how to live in a house. But we don't know how to design a house. A skillful architect needs to know how to listen to our conversation about living in a house, and then figure out what that means.
Our satisfaction with the house will be based on two things. First of all is our ability to articulate our most important information about how we live and how we want to live. Information about how much money we want to spend and what kind of time spans are involved. We need to as clearly as possible, tell the architect what our vision is for our house.
Second of all, and of equal importance, is the architect's understanding hearing of our vision. And then his taking of that combination of needs, money and time to produce a design that fits our needs.
The real heart of the book however was a series of checklists that served to define the contractual relationship between the owner and the architect. The checklists were all about setting very objective criteria in the design process. The architect was tied both financially and contractually to a very specific vision of a house. Before the first serious conversation took place between the architect and the owner, the architect was incentivized to spend as little time as possible on our house or with us. He was incentivized to produce as simple and as basic a package of drawings as possible. Because of the nature of our business relationship, the likelihood of the architect taking much ownership in the project is not high. He will want to get in and then get out of the project in the minimum time possible.
After the architect produces his design, we are going to be working with a construction contractor for some 9 to 12 months. Once we have committed to that contractor, we will be spending some 20 to 40 times the amount of money with the contractor that we spent with the architect. Once we have committed to that contractor, that contractor will have the power in the relationship not us as the owner. Every contractor we work with is going to be much more sophisticated than we are about where cost and quality can be cut without being seen.
Having spent my working life designing and building unique "one of" projects that were very important to the owners of those projects, I ignored the advice of the book and its checklists. Luckily my wife and I agreed on our choice of an architect. But I chose him for two basic reasons. First, because he had no set fee for the work, but simply charged by the hour. He is not going to be trying to economize his time to maximize his profit margin.
Secondly, he came across as someone who would listen to what we wanted. He talked about how the type of design would dictate what drawings were needed. He talked about the need for the architect to stay involved during construction to make sure that the design intent was followed and that no compromises in construction quality were allowed without our knowledge.
I have to tell you that he was preaching to the choir.
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2 comments:
My wife and I are in the process of looking at larger parcels of land in the Kings Valley area or other parts of Conifer...
I have considered of preparing my own plans and do the constr. mgt. work myself..however lately..
I am beginning to aks myself whether or not I should in fact hire an architect and use them as the CM...
What would you suggest given your experience and why did you not pursue it on your own behalf as the creator of plans and CM work...
Some of the most important reasons:
To give my wife a break. Our marriage of 33 years survived a major remodel of our house. I felt that building a house with me as the architect and construction manager would be really pushing it.
One of my senior managers at work, whose opinion I take very seriously, chastised me for trying to do it myself. Hire a professional, he said.
In doing that remodel several years ago, I came to better appreciate my strengths and weaknesses. I tend to build things heavy and solid, with little flair. The things that I think are cool and really obsess about in a house design are things which nobody else cares about. Generally with good reason.
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