FAQs

What will my project cost?

Typical residential new construction projects should include a basic construction cost estimate in the Predesign and Concept Design phases provided by the architect to ensure alignment between project goals and costs.

Here are some key definitions that may be helpful:

  1. Project costs = hard and soft costs.

  2. Hard costs = construction costs = direct costs
    Project hard costs include site utilities, construction costs for everything in the house, construction management fees, sales tax, permit fees, landscape, etc.

  3. Soft costs = indirect costs
    Soft costs include professional consulting fees (architecture, engineering, surveying, zoning specialist, interior designer, energy review, legal fees), land purchase, financing, etc. Soft costs are not typically included in a construction cost estimate.

  4. Preliminary construction budget:
    The preliminary construction budget is selected by the client. It is used in conjunction with basic construction estimation tools for determining project feasibility and establish the appropriate project size, complexity, and quality to design to.

Some additional thoughts:

  1. A good rule of thumb for construction costs is 50:50 — 50% for materials, 50% for labor.

  2. Experienced local general contractors may have their finger on the pulse of the market and can usually provide some of the best inference on how much your specific project will cost.

  3. An understanding of the percentage of the project each part is of the whole may be a useful guide and give you a better picture of overall construction project costs. For example, if a foundation system is typically 10% of the total, and your hard cost is $1 million, then that’s $100k for the foundation. If you decide you want to go with a special foundation system and it costs 100% more than the typical foundation, then it’s 18% of the new total hard cost of $1.1 million.

What would it cost to design my house?

It depends.

The level of sophistication, complexity, specificity required in detail, construction oversight, time needed to spend on decision-making, and exploring of options will all affect design costs. On the services agreed upon to complete the design for your project. On the lighter end of services you may receive a “Builder Set,” and on the other end of the spectrum would be “Full Services” based on the industry standard for design services as detailed by AIA (American Institute for Architects). Two determinant factors are:

  1. The amount of conceptual design needed / desired. I like to produce two or three design options and narrow things down as we journey through the conceptual design phase.

    It may look like this: Choose Option 1 or 2; Option 2 gets chosen, then choose Option 2A or 2B, etc, until we complete the concept design phase. But sometimes a client wants to further explore concepts and says “let’s design another option,” and another, and another. You get the idea. As much fun as this is, it impacts the design fee.

  2. The level of design services in regard to the attention to detail needed / desired for the construction document phase.

Additional factors include: house size, new construction vs remodel, permit requirements, consultants needed (such as geotechnical, mechanical, structural engineer, etc), construction bid type.

Would you give me a rule of thumb to work from with regard to pricing?

With new construction here’s two ways you might look at it:

  1. Custom home plans may cost you 10% of the construction budget. It’s not uncommon for a $1,000,000 home to require $100,000 in design service fees (this would often include the engineering).

    OR

  2. It may be $3-4 per square foot of living space for architectural design services (excluding engineering).

With remodels the design costs tend to vary more widely than new construction. And it can be more difficult for the owner to discern if a project is feasible. If that’s you, I would highly recommend you request an initial consultation and assessment with an architect or two to better understand project feasibility and explore potential paths forward.

Why should I hire a licensed architect?

Here’s a five reasons you should hire an architect:

  1. A good architect has both the expertise in the design process and the experience to rightly inform the project parameters. They are able to provide good architectural plans.

  2. An expert designer, advisor, and advocate would be at your service to help produce an optimal outcome based on your proclivities and the project parameters.

  3. A good contractor can recognize good architectural plans. Where a contractor does not recognize poor architectural plans there are negative implications whether or not this contractor is ethical. This may include: cost and schedule overruns, unmet expectations, being taken advantage of, non-code compliance, unmitigated risks to HSW (health, safety, welfare), and ultimately poor project outcomes. The opposite of blissful.

  4. An architect is ethically required to be concerned with the HSW of their clients as it pertains to applicable codes, regulations, and laws for their project. An architect is accountable to the state licensing board.

  5. It’ll be a lot more fun!

What is your design process?

For most projects my design process will involve two phases:

  1. Conceptual design:

    The images needed to see that this is the right plan.

    This phase includes design inquiry to understand what the parameters should be. Design inquiry may involve understanding local precedent, site analysis, review of applicable code/zoning requirements, and meetings / workshops with the client to listen and understand what they’re wanting. My next step is to produce two contrasting design options for client feedback. Then cycle through client feedback and the architect design response until we have reached the point of agreement that this is the right plan.

  2. Construction documents:

    The documents needed to construct the concept.

    These documents may be straightforward or quite complex. Regardless, I work to keep the plans as simple as they can be, but not simpler. Many plan sets are unnecessarily complex. This may seem impressive to the untrained eye, but it results in useless or bad information / directives that may result in the important things getting missed.