Are Owners and Developers Obtaining the Architectural Services They Are Paying For?

Within the last 10-15 years the building boom has been lucrative for architecture firms. During that point many architecture graduates gained in-office experience while they worked their way up from designer or job captain to project manager. During that point many of these individuals never took the initiative to have their architect's licensed. Given that the economy has slowed down, owners and developers can pick and choose the architecture firm for his or her project. Because same regard, they could also request to verify credentials of staff who will be managing their project for the architectural firm. For example, if a task designer or manager is overseeing entitlements for a multi-million dollar project, he or she's over ten years experience, but isn't licensed to apply architecture, there could be a problem! The California Architects Practice Act Sec. 5536 states "Practice without license or holding self out as Architect is punishable by law" ;.All things considered, if you had been spending money on legal services at a law firm, you would expect the lawyer representing your case to own passed the bar!

This goes for Green Building as well. Architects are anticipated to take the lead on LEED. The Architect in control of your green building project should be considered a LEED AP (Accredited Professional). There's a growing number of municipalities requiring Green Design. Cities such as for example Bauelemente Los Angeles offer priority plan check for Green Buildings (time is money). In the LEED AP exam seminar I attended, there was only another architect in the room. Many professionals attending the seminar were builders, developers, and property managers. Currently over half of Turner Construction Company's professional staff is LEED AP.

Moving on, you also want to look into the cost of the service that you are going to hire. There is nothing worse than thinking that you have found an architectural service company, just to realize that you are unable to do business with them because the price is too high. Is this a situation that you really want to deal with?

Another thing that you should think about is the quality of the work. It does not matter how much experience somebody has, if they are not going to give you the quality you deserve it is time for you to move on and consider another company.

Finally, you should become familiar with the time frame before you sign on the dotted line and get started with the project. As you can imagine, there is nothing worse than hiring a company that is not able to meet your deadline. Not only could this cost you time, but it could go a long way in costing you a lot of money as well - and that is not something that you want.

Now that you have all of this advice in mind and an idea of what you are doing, you can find an architectural service company that is able to meet your every want and need.

There is nothing better than hiring a company that can do it all for you, from the knockdown to the rebuild. Just make sure you are getting the quality that you deserve at a price you can afford.