Questions
Five, and the third one is the expensive misunderstanding.
- How are your fees worked out?
- Per phase, as a fixed figure agreed before that phase starts. Most architects quote a percentage of construction cost, which is a number nobody knows at the start and which quietly rewards a more expensive building. Phase fees mean you can price each step, and stop after any of them.
- Can I stop after the first phase?
- Yes, and people do. Each phase produces drawings you own outright — feasibility tells you whether the project is possible at all, schematic design gives you something a builder can price roughly. Stopping is a normal outcome rather than a failed project, and one client came back eighteen months later and started again at phase two.
- Do you do the building work as well?
- No. I draw and I do not build, and the distinction matters more than it sounds: your builder is hired by you, under a contract with you, and I am the person checking their work against the drawings rather than checking my own. An architect who is also the contractor cannot do that second job, whatever they say.
- How long does permitting take here?
- It depends entirely on the jurisdiction and it is their clock rather than mine — some reviews here run six weeks and some run five months, and the same drawings can get either. I will tell you what the current experience has been in your jurisdiction, and I will not promise you a date that is not mine to promise.
- What do you need from me to start?
- The address, a survey if one exists, and an honest budget range. The budget is the one people withhold and it is the one that matters most — a design drawn without it is a design that gets value-engineered into something worse six months later.
Permit timelines described here are the jurisdiction’s experience rather than a commitment, and no construction cost on this site is a quotation.